Countries In Sub-Saharan Africa Could Be Worst Hit By Meta’s Plan To End Its Low-Cost Express Wi-Fi Internet

The initiative, launched by Meta five years ago to drive connectivity in underserved regions, will reportedly be discontinued. Meta, formerly Facebook, quietly issued this notice on its website stating its plans to wind down the program later this year.

The program was envisioned to bridge the internet gap across emerging markets like Africa, where connectivity is lowest across the globe.

According to the 2021 GSMA mobile economy report, about 28% of the population in sub-Saharan Africa is connected to the mobile internet.

This is in comparison to the connectivity in other regions like Europe, which stands at over 80%.

But in the notice, Meta said: “After more than five years in operation, we are planning to wind down our Express Wi-Fi program. Together with our partners, we helped expand public Wi-Fi access for people in more than 30 countries via the Express Wi-Fi platform.

“While we are concluding our work on this program to focus on developing other projects, we remain committed to working with partners across the telecom ecosystem to deliver better connectivity.

“As we conclude our work on the program later this year, we’ll work closely with Express Wi-Fi partners to help minimize the impact to their businesses and their customer’s connectivity.”

The ‘winding down’ comes barely a year after the firm partnered with Eutelsat Konnect, a satellite operator, to expand the low-cost internet service in parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, Kenya, Ivory Coast, Zambia, Cameroon, Ghana, Zimbabwe, Madagascar, Ghana, South Africa and Uganda.

But – much to our surprise in countries like Kenya, the service has been off since mid-December 2020, according to Tech Crunch.