Smart Communications and Wikimedia foundation have recently inked a deal which will allow the two parties to give Smart, Talk ‘N Text and Sun Cellular subscribers free and unlimited access to Wikipedia through the initiative called Wikipedia Zero.
It’s almost been a year since we brought you the news about Wikipedia Zero, and if you can remember, neither Smart nor Globe were on the initial list of telcos that expressed their intent to bring Wikipedia Zero to their respective regions.
Luckily, Smart Communications had a change of hearts and formalized its partnership with Wikimedia Zero to bring Wikipedia Zero to the Philippines. Through this initiative, accessing m.wikipedia.org, zero.wikipedia.org, Wikipedia apps, as well as other Wikimedia sites on their mobile device will not incur additional data charges to all Smart, Sun Cellular and Talk ‘N Text subscribers.
As stated on our previous report, Wikipedia Zero will be a “lightweight and text-only version” of the desktop site, which will not eat too much of the telco’s bandwidth, as well as making it easier to load on the user’s mobile browser. Free access to Wikipedia started last Friday, September 5, and will end on February 13, 2015.
Just make sure that you don’t have enough load credits for mobile browsing. This is to ensure that even if other background apps connect to the internet, you won’t be charged.
I also applaud this chivalric deed. Since the program doesn’t eat too much data, this should not expire or incur charges in the future. this should be treated as “smart gives back”, after all, they gained so much from their loyal users. hopefully this will be looked upon by their researchers.
I commend Smart and Wikipedia for this. One of the bright things for our poor fellow Pinoys.
Dapat ito lang ang free forever para naman may matutunan ang mga kababayan natin, hindi puro pagpapasikat at paglandi sa fb, twitter, at instagram ang alam. Ngayon, pwede ka na gumawa ng assignment anywhere anytime. At magbasa ng mga makabuluhang bagay kesa magimbento ng rap at mangarap sumali sa flip top. Nung bata ako kailangan pa bumili ng encyclopedia ng nanay ko para may mapaglibangan ako out of text books sa school, ngayon super libre na lang yan swerte natin, sana samantalahin ito ng mga kabataan.