Airtel Nigeria has announced its collaboration with the Wikimedia Foundation to bring free Wikipedia access to its over 20 million subscribers.
This comes as an expansion of Wikipedia Zero, an initiative by the Wikimedia Foundation (the guys behind Wikipedia) to bring the vast knowledge of the internet to more people, by working with local telcos to waive data charges for accessing Wikipedia. Wikipedia Zero already rolled out in other African countries including Kenya and Uganda. In Kenya, the initiative has gone a step further to bring Wikipedia Text, an SMS and USSD based evolution of Wikipedia Zero.
Airtel subscribers can now access the internet encyclopaedia free of data charges by visiting m.wikipedia.org from their internet-enable mobile phones.
