{"id":432382,"date":"2022-02-01T15:06:18","date_gmt":"2022-02-01T13:06:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=432382"},"modified":"2022-02-01T15:06:18","modified_gmt":"2022-02-01T13:06:18","slug":"facebook-ending-low-cost-internet-programme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/broadband\/432382-facebook-ending-low-cost-internet-programme.html","title":{"rendered":"Facebook ending low cost Internet programme"},"content":{"rendered":"

Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook<\/a><\/strong>) has announced<\/a><\/strong> that it will be winding down its programme to provide low-cost Internet in developing countries.<\/p>\n

The Express Wi-Fi Programme was in operation for more than five years and offered a low-cost Internet connectivity solution in developing nations through partnerships with mobile network operators and businesses.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile we are concluding our work on this program to focus on developing other projects, we remain committed to working with partners across the telecom ecosystem to deliver better connectivity,\u201d Meta wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs we conclude our work on the program later this year, we\u2019ll work closely with Express Wi-Fi partners to minimize impact to their businesses and their customer\u2019s connectivity.\u201d<\/p>\n

The platform was launched in 2016 and was designed to be inexpensive, with prices starting at around $0.15 (R2.30) for 100MB.<\/p>\n

It is important not to confuse Meta\u2019s Express Wi-Fi platform with its Free Basics<\/a><\/strong> programme, which, as the name implies, is designed to bring limited free connectivity to developing countries.<\/p>\n

Recently, software bugs in the company\u2019s free Internet service have been racking up charges for users<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Paid features were being displayed in Meta Free Basics, even though they should remain hidden or warn users of data costs.<\/p>\n

As a result, carriers in these countries were charging users around $7.8 million (R119 million) per month for a service that should not incur data charges.<\/p>\n

\n

Now read: Google warns court ruling will force it to censor the Internet<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Meta Platforms plans on bringing its Express Wi-Fi programme to an end.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341076,"featured_media":432386,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[42974,161,44929,74560],"class_list":["post-432382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-broadband","tag-express-wi-fi","tag-facebook","tag-facebook-free-basics","tag-meta-platforms-inc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432382"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341076"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=432382"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432382\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":432410,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432382\/revisions\/432410"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/432386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=432382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=432382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=432382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}