Aircel has tied up with Wikimedia Foundation to offer free access to Wikipedia on mobile phones for their customers. This is the first service of its kind to formally launch in India. This lets you browse Wikipedia website (m.wikipedia.org) on any internet enabled mobile phone without any data charges. This is a part of Wikimedia Foundation’s Wikipedia Zero program, to enable mobile access, free of data charges, to Wikipedia to billions of people around the world, especially in developing countries.
Regarding the partnership Anupam Vasudev, Chief Marketing Officer for Aircel, said
Through our alliance with the Wikimedia Foundation, Aircel is not only making internet services reach a wider audience, but also help encourage and enrich the lives of our customers by offering access to knowledge and information free of cost. We are excited about this partnership and hope this initiative will benefit all our customers from various age groups
Kul Takanao Wadhwa, Head of Mobile with the Wikimedia Foundation said
We hail Aircel’s commitment to enhancing and expanding access to free knowledge for their mobile customers. With the partnership, we extend our program to India where we potentially reach millions of people for the first time. Aircel is one of the operators across the globe that has contributed towards expanding free access to Wikipedia Zero to 470 mn mobile users.
Aircel customers would be able to access Wikipedia in English, Hindi, Tamil, and 17 other Indic languages. It is available only prepaid customers and not available for BlackBerry customers on Aircel.