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"Thanks to a new partnership between\u00A0Saudi Telecom Company (STC) and Wikimedia,\u00A025 million STC mobile customers in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Kuwait\u00A0can now access Wikipedia free of charge --\u00A0with zero data fees.\u00A0This deal raises the total number of\u00A0mobile users with free Wikipedia access to an impressive\u00A0230 million,\u00A0as part of the\u00A0Wikipedia Zero program;\u00A0an\u00A0initiative to bring free mobile Wikipedia\u00A0access to developing countries.\r\n\r\nToday's announcement is extremely important, considering the massive amount of information that is now infinitely more accessible to millions of people in both arabic and english. Additionally, the decision reflects how key Wikimedia believes\u00A0emerging, Arabic-speaking\u00A0users will be for its future success, as part of a larger emphasis on everything mobile.\r\n\r\nWikimedia has already partnered with operators like\u00A0Orange,\u00A0Telenor,\u00A0Digi and\u00A0dtac\u00A0to bring free access to countries like\u00A0Uganda,\u00A0Malaysia,\u00A0Kenya and\u00A0Thailand, although some of the partnerships only offer free access to the lighter-weight, text-only\u00A0zero.wikipedia.org version. Lucky for\u00A0STC's 25 million customers, Wikimedia\u00A0states that they specifically will\u00A0have access to both\u00A0m.wikipedia.org and zero.wikipedia.org.\r\n\r\nAccording to Eng. Ibrahim Al Omar, Vice President for Personal Services:\r\nOne\u00A0of the principles that STC adheres to is the commitment to spreading\u00A0social awareness and the fostering of a knowledge-sharing culture that\u00A0accomplishes the aspirations of all segments of our customer-base.\u00A0Wikipedia Zero is considered an additional cornerstone\u00A0that supports the continuous efforts of STC in the field of social\u00A0awareness.\r\nWikimedia's partnership is certainly an impressive development -- one which could also benefit a number of other regions, even the US, as NY Daily News\u00A0claims that just\u00A050.4 percent of US\u00A0mobile subscribers own smartphones.\r\n\r\nGlobally, we have a long way to go towards brining true accessibility to the Internet, but announcements like this can help move everyone forward.\r\n\r\nImage credit:\u00A0YASSER AL-ZAYYAT / Getty Images"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://thenextweb.com/mobile/2012/10/14/saudi-telecom-company-and-wikimedia-bring-free-wikipedia-access-to-25-million-mobile-devices/>