Facebook has partnered with CoolLink, one of Nigeria’s Local
Internet Service Providers to launch a program called Express Wi-Fi
around the city of Lagos. Express Wifi is a Facebook initiative that
gives mobile device owners in underserved communities access to fast and
affordable internet service through partnerships with local internet
service providers. Facebook is also providing a software that’ll help
ISPs and entrepreneurs sell or provide internet with a 15% commission on
each data sale. The service was first implemented in India and Nigeria
is the second country to get the hotspots.Set to launch officially in Lagos sometime this week, Express Wifi hotspots will have service speeds of 10Mbps with plans ranging from as low as N40 for 100MB daily to N1,600 for 5GB monthly. The Express Wifi hotspots are already live in some parts of Lagos, Ikota Shopping Complex, for instance – and will be rolled out to other parts of Nigeria as soon as the entire Lagos State is taken care of.
Users within the Express Wi-Fi coverage area will be able to browse the sites of Facebook’s Freebasic platform for free, but other online activity will be require a fee. The available data plans on Express Wi-Fi are listed below:
- 100MB / N40 / 24hrs
- 300MB / N110 / 24hrs
- 750MB / N270 / 7 days
- 2GB / N700 / 7 days
- 3GB / N1000 30 days
- 5GB / N1600 / 30 days
As you can see, it is the cheapest data plans ever.
If you’re within a coverage area, There’s already a site where people can sign up for a 14-day free trial (with up to 100MB per day) but coverage areas haven’t been announced yet. We’ll update this as soon as we find out where these areas are.
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