8/10/2019 Facebooks Internet.org Works With Carriers to Speed Up Networks, Indonesia First

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Facebooks Internet.org Works with

Carriers to Speed up Networks, Indonesia

First

Facebook has long been promoting the the idea of free, zero-rated mobile services in emerging

countries to drive more Facebook (and wider mobile data) usage. Now, its Internet.org initiative

has crafted another way to promote growth: by working with directly with carriers to analyse and

fix their networks, with a recent trial in Indonesia the fourth-biggest country for Facebook

usagespeeding up mobile network speeds by up to 70%, the company says.

Facebook says that the project in Indonesia will be a template for further markets. Thanks to this

research, we now have a replicable model for analyzing, measuring and improving network

performance that can be applied to any mobile network, the company says. Unfortunately, no

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additional details to share right now on future projects. With Internetworks free access app

launching earlier this year in Zambia, this could be one country on the list to tackle.

It highlights an interesting evolution in Facebooks role abroad. While helping make its service

more accessible in developing markets and investing in more interesting ways of charging for it,

Facebook is also positioning itself as an ally to carriers. And whether you look at Internet.orgcynically or not it does, after all, feed into Facebooks growth plans theres a place for

more attention to better data access.

Working directly with carriers to fix their networks will help raise Facebooks profile with them,

and potentially give it more negotiating power when talking with those carriers about turning on

services like zero-rating. This highlights a wider trend of how internet companies appear to be

working ever-closer with carriers to grow their reach.

The social network, now with over 1.3 billion users globally, carried out the project in Indonesia

via its Internet.org initiative, along with Ericsson (another Internet.org member) and Indonesian

mobile operatorXL Axiata.You can see the full results in a white paper it has published.

This was not a random choice of country or carrier: Indonesia is the fourth-largest country for

Facebook usage, andXL Axiata says that Facebook is by far the most popular service among

subscribers who use mobile data (over half their base is currently paying for mobile data

services).

The idea behind the work in Indonesia is that zero-rated Facebook access may lower the gates

for people, but it doesnt tackle one of the bigger problems that prevent zero-rating from

working: many carriers in emerging markets simply lack the infrastructure or funds to invest in the

fastest data networks.

According to a recent study from McKinsey, there are some 4.4 billion people offline in the world

today, with 3.4 billion of them concentrated into 20 countries (a target list for Facebook,

perhaps?).

Facebook, working with Ericsson and XL Axiata, created a methodology to analyze, monitor and

improve end-to-end network performance not on the live network but using simulated

Facebook application use cases. The tests and improvements, incidentally, were all carried out on

Android devices (a signal in itself of just how dominant the platform is for smartphone usage in

emerging markets).

Over the first six months of 2014, the three developed a process to simulate app use: using atest agent developed by Facebook, typical Facebook interactions were triggered and measured

on different mobile devices in urban, suburban and rural regions across the XL Axiata coverage

area, the white paper on the project notes.

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It also developed a series of metrics that measured activity and bottlenecks in XL Axiatas radioaccess network, core network, and content delivery network.

After seeing the results, the three made network-wide adjustments that sped up the network by

70%. The idea here is not to lay on more infrastructure investments, but to work on fine-tuning

what is already there. We now know that it is possible to increase network performance using

existing network resources, which is key to helping close the conne ctivity gap, the company notes

in a blog post.

Facebook is also trying to tackle the connectivity from another angle: the company has hosted a

hackathon in Indonesias capital, Jakarta, focused specifically on creating apps that are more

data-efficient for markets where decent data connectivity is in shorter supply or is too expensive.

The Internet.org work is being made public as Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg travels in

Indonesia and meets with its president-elect and current Jakarta Governor Joko Widodo (first

stop on the trip: the temple at Borobudur; pictured above, Zuckerberg photographing other

tourists at the site). Its part of a wider trip Zuckerberg has been making in Asia, which also

included a visit to India last week and the unveiling of $1 million in prize/funding money for new

app developers.