This is hinting at the on-demand knowledge service to mobile handsets worldwide that Robert Steele proposed in this (very interesting) talk at Amazon: <a href="http://goo.gl/LKlcr" rel="nofollow">http://goo.gl/LKlcr</a>
This is awesome! I'd heard about it from a previous HN submission when it was still quite small, but it looks like it is really taking off.<p>Interestingly, this is actually inspired by "Facebook Zero"[1], which may be the best thing Facebook will do for humanity: inspiring free information access for all.<p>[1]: <a href="http://qz.com/5180/facebooks-plan-to-find-its-next-billion-users-convince-them-the-internet-and-facebook-are-the-same/" rel="nofollow">http://qz.com/5180/facebooks-plan-to-find-its-next-billion-u...</a>
does anyone have some insight how that would work? the best rate i could find for sending sms in europe is around 0.015€/sms at a large volume - still that would probably be way too expensive for such a project. will Wikipedia Zero have to rely on the cooperation of the mobile carriers for that distribution channel as well?
Given more time the market will develop a solution if there is demand for it. Just like mobile phones are actually being bought in developing countries, something not really foreseen 15 years ago.
Forcing something like this on telecom providers will result in the a delay in providing internet access to everyone, it will result in government interference with subsidies and cripple the evolution of the internet not only in developing countries but world wide.
Patience is the keyword.