Airtel Beats MTN, Etisalat to Free Basic Partnership with Facebook

Airtel Beats MTN, Etisalat to Free Basic Partnership with Facebook

A new internet access revolution is about to happen in Nigeria and it was announced by no less a person than the founder of Facebook himself. Mark Zuckerberg just announced a partnership between Airtel Nigeria and Facebook. This partnership will activate what has been tagged Free Basics in Nigeria.

Simply put, free basics will let Nigerians with Airtel mobile connection be able to access all the services that are available through the Free Basics platform without paying extra for data. I can see smiles already. Free Basics provides basic mobile websites and services for free to people around the world and demonstrating the value the internet can provide.

Mark Zuckerberg posted this on his Facebook page:


There's a lot of innovation across Africa right now, and Nigeria in particular is home to a lot of talented developers.

In 2009, Olalekan Elude, Ayodeji Adewunmi and Opeyemi Awoyemi started a site called Jobberman in their dorm to help connect people looking for work with companies looking to hire. Now Jobberman is one of the top 100 websites in Nigeria, and it gets 5,000 applications every day.

Free Basics offers Nigerians, including 90 million people who are currently offline, the opportunity to access news, health information and services like Jobberman that were built by Nigerians and other developers across West Africa -- all without having to pay for data.

Free Basics is now live in more than 40 countries, and half of those are in Africa. Over the next few months, we'll be doing more to connect developers with people who can use their apps -- and partner with local companies to bring internet to people across Africa who don't have access to mobile networks.

In the meantime, I'm excited to see what Nigerians build next! 🇳🇬

When launched in Nigeria, Free Basics will provide more than 85 free services in areas such as education, jobs, health and finance. In addition to this, Airtel Africa will also be offering Facebook Flex in Nigeria, which allows people to access a version of Facebook without data charges. Airtel has in the past worked with Facebook to provide Free Basics in Zambia, Kenya, Malawi, Ghana, Seychelles and Rwanda.

Airtel must be very happy to beat the likes of MTN, Etisalat and Glo to this wonderful initiative but trust the other telco to respond in due course. All in all, Nigerians will be the better for it.