Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg Announces Plans for Expanded Internet Access in Latin America, Developing Countries

Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder and CEO of Facebook, wants more people to be on the Internet. In fact, he wants to help about 5 billion people in developing countries to get in on the Internet economy (which of course, includes Facebook).

That's why he announced a new initiative on Wednesday to help deliver low-cost mobile Internet technology and service around the world, and especially to developing countries. The ambitious initiative is called Internet.org. Facebook is teaming up with some of the largest mobile and technology companies, including 4G chip maker Qualcomm, Nokia, Ericsson, and smartphone giant Samsung, to try to connect billions of people who have not yet had access to either Internet service and/or the relatively expensive technological products required to access the Internet.

"Everything Facebook has done has been about giving all people around the world the power to connect," said Zuckerberg in a statement on Facebook's website. "There are huge barriers in developing countries to connecting and joining the knowledge economy. Internet.org brings together a global partnership that will work to overcome these challenges, including making Internet access available to those who cannot currently afford it."

Nearly two-thirds of the world's population does not have the Internet. Zuckerberg intends to remedy that by making phone apps simpler and less data-heavy, along with improving the networks in developing countries to make data transmission less expensive, battery-intensive and faster.

The social media giant has released this video, in which an edited JFK speech narrates the idea in the form of a humanitarian effort:

Of course, such initiatives are partly humanitarian; Internet access can help connect developing economies to greater opportunities and ideas. Google also has a similar initiative - though carried out much more fantastically - called Project Loon. Google's idea is to float superpressure balloons in the skies above hard-to-reach regions of the world to deliver wireless Internet access.

But humanitarian goals are just part of the motive for Facebook, which has already garnered 100 million Facebook mobile customers in developing countries through their low-tech feature phone application called "Facebook for Every Phone." The company first subsidized the data required for the app through many carriers, but is now starting to monetize the effort, albeit slowly, with advertisements.

Getting new customers who aren't loyal to any particular technology company yet (or especially operating system) is also in Firefox OS's plans, which recently launched two of its debut phones first in Spain, Venezuela and Columbia, before even putting a Firefox OS-capable phone up for sale in the United States.

Zuckerberg is not hiding the business end of Internet.org's philosophy. In an interview for the New York Times, Facebook's CEO laid out the crux between business and humanitarianism when it comes to the Internet. "The Internet is such an important thing for driving humanity forward, but it's not going to build itself," said Zuckerberg. "Ultimately, this has to make business sense on some time frame that people can get behind."

Some of those big companies have apparently already found the business sense, because they're joining in with their own efforts to bridge the digital divide. Qualcomm, for example, has created new designs to make phones more energy efficient, lower the amount of data required for operation, extend the phone's battery life and expand the reach of networks. Other initiatives include a plan from Nokia, which recently teamed with Mexico's Telcel to provide free Facebook access. Facebook itself has been paring down the amount of data required for its Android app to function in a normal way.

All of these small improvements and partnerships are supposed to add up to more access to entry-level Internet services and products for developing countries. "No one company can really do this by itself," said Zuckerberg.

How much cooperation these companies show in rapidly growing, technologically expanding countries like those in Latin America - versus possible (or inevitable) competition between companies like Facebook, Google, Firefox OS, and others in those markets - is yet to be seen.