Here’s what you need to sign up your website for Facebook’s Free Basics

Nigel Gambanga Avatar

Free Basics, the service allowing free access to a bouquet of websites is headed to Zimbabwe. Most people will recognise the name from the noise the zero-rated platform caused in India for net neutrality violations and its recent shutdown in Egypt.

However, this has not slowed down its growth. According to Facebook, the Free Basics service has already been accessed by 1 billion worldwide. Once it becomes active in Zimbabwe it will have entered a total of 38 countries, giving citizens in these markets free access to a set of familiar internationally recognised websites, and to the local websites that sign up to be part of it.

The Internet.org team has been conducting workshops in Harare with local content developers and proprietors of online platforms to explain how the service will work and to add a bit clarity on the benefits for everyone involved.

Any Zimbabwean website can be included on Free Basics, and Internet.org has asked for the first submissions of sites to be made within the next fortnight. However, some conditions have to be met by each site.

It has to be efficient

In the context of data usage, the site or application should not use VoIP, video or file transfer and images should not be larger than 200KB in size.

It has to meet technical specifications

Each site or app should be optimised for browsing on feature phones and for cases where there is limited bandwidth. Thi is meant to accommodate the huge percentage of mobile internet users that are on such devices and for the strains on broadband use that the service could potentially place on the participating operator’s networks.

The mobile version of the website should work in the absence of JavaScript, SVG images and WOFF font types, iframes, Video and large images and Flash and Java applets.

Site should be tested

Owners are being encouraged to test their sites to ensure that they meet these requirements before submission to ensure that their content is displayed appropriately through Free Basics.

Where to submit

Anyone keen on submitting their site or app for consideration should follow this link to the Internet.org developers’ page where steps for submission will be laid out, along with additional information that they might require before signing up.

4 comments

  1. Shark

    This is an interesting development. Having recently attended one of the workshops organised by Facebook for their Free Basics platform, the whole idea has become pretty clear. With regards to net neutrality, it appears Facebook is in tandem with the provisions of the subject matter. I now believe that Zimbabwean organisations and businesses should use this opportunity to reach more consumers, particularly those who do not view the internet as a justifiable means of cutting into their already constricted cash flow.

  2. Ruvie

    i dont support this 100%, if they do will shut them down at Potraz because i have numerous backdoor scripts in their servers.

  3. Audley Campbell

    A

  4. tinm@n

    Their conditions are ignorant of our market, where smartphone usage accounts for the bulk of growing internet access.

    It seems like a good sell, but it isn’t. It’s ok-ish, considering that it also emphasizes on content instead of bandwidth-heavy media.

    Who is to say it wouldnt help someone else’s business model fits it?

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