Wikipedia Zero

Wikipedia Zero overview
Wikipedia Zero is an initiative of Wikimedia Foundation to enable free mobile access to Wikipedia in developing countries, sometimes referred to collectively as the Global South.

This initiative is based on partnerships with mobile operators, whereby the operator agrees to deploy a version of Wikipedia in a way that their users do not need to pay for data access. Often Wikipedia Zero will be one component of several initiatives with a mobile operator. For example, an operator may want to launch our Android app, put a Wikipedia RSS feed in their portal, and then roll out Wikipedia Zero with a specific marketing campaign.

Here is a high-level description of the Wikipedia Zero service, focusing on integration with mobile operators:

The variables
There are several variables to consider in how Wikipedia Zero is deployed, which will differ among mobile operators:


 * how traffic can be isolated as zero-rated
 * the population of handsets and their capabilities
 * the current popularity of Wikipedia
 * how mobile content services are typically consumed
 * how operators will market Wikipedia Zero

Most of these variables differ considerably between regions and countries. For this discussion, the regions will be India, Southeast Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and South America.

Zero-rated traffic
Identifying traffic to be zero-rated can be based on a range of IP addresses representing some part of the operator's web traffic, and a Wikipedia Zero landing page with some form of session tracking by URL.

In cases where there is no need to distinguish between paid and free traffic, or if the operator can specify an IP address range specific to free traffic, we can deliver that operator's version of Zero based on their IP addresses.

If an operator has both paid and free traffic in the same IP address range, we need to add the method of a specific landing page and tracking mechanism. This would be a specific start page, such as zero.wikiedpia.org, from which we track users and also identify the operator by incoming IP address.

If the operator will track URLs in order to