Google Free Zone - Share and search on your phone with no data charges

http://www.google.com.ph/intl/en/mobile/landing/freezone/stp.html

by xtimesninety • 14 years ago

58 33 14 years ago

google.com.ph

greenyoda• 14 years ago

Currently, this is only offered by one mobile phone operator, and it's in the Philippines:

https://support.google.com/websearch/bin/answer.py?hl=en&...

xtimesninety2• 14 years ago

Got this via SMS from Globe Telecom (PH): "Make sure that there are no running applications connecting to the internet when using the service to avoid incurring data charges"

Tried it in the Philippines and it works well. One possible problem here is that for smartphones, users may be charged unexpectedly because background apps that access the net. There should be a separate APN for Free Zone use so users are sure they are not charged for normal data rates. I don't think users will use this if they are uncertain that it is totally free.

jpdelatorre• 14 years ago

Agree. They should use different APN.

Hope Smart would support it also

dancarlson• 14 years ago

I've got to say, from the headline I was expecting the exact opposite of what this product turned out to be.

primatology2• 14 years ago

Agreed, it's a terribly ambiguous name. Rather than "Google Free-Zone" (which is read as "Google-Free Zone"), it should be a "Free Google Zone."

rhplus2• 14 years ago

In the linked page all references are "Free Zone powered by Google".

yen223• 14 years ago

I thought it was a Bing thing at first.

xtimesninety2• 14 years ago

*I updated the title to be more clear :)

awad• 14 years ago

Reminds me of Facebook Zero:

http://qz.com/5180/facebooks-plan-to-find-its-next-billion-u...

chimpoo2• 14 years ago

It's only offered in Philippines...

3amOpsGuy• 14 years ago

I'd imagine this will expand, as Facebook Zero has (same idea, but free Facebook access instead).

chimpoo2• 14 years ago

Yes definitely

rhplus2• 14 years ago

My first thought was that it sounded like a walled garden, basically AOL for the mobile age, but then I saw this:

When you click on a link in the search results page, you don’t pay anything. If you click on a link after this, you will need to pay for this data usage (but don’t worry, before you are charged, you will see a warning page with the option to sign up for a data plan if you want.) So for example, if you click on a search link to a Wikipedia article, you won’t pay anything. But if you click on a link within the article, you will be charged for the data costs incurred loading that link.

That part is a really interesting. As the old saying goes, the first hit is always free! It's freemium for data plans.

I wonder if the phone operators are keen on this because it's a way to get people who were previously hesistant onto data plans.

zaptheimpaler• 14 years ago

Facebook has had this for a while now. You can go to 0.facebook.com from a supported carrier for free access.

glaxoberg• 14 years ago

great

PeterisP• 14 years ago

There's a full page that describes a service that may be relevant to everyone, but nowhere in the page does it say which 1% of the planet it applies to.

If you mean "specific operators in one country", then name them.

If you saying "mobile operators" while meaning "<1% of all mobile operators" - that is simply lying. Well, 99% lying and 1% truth.

ArekDymalski• 14 years ago

The name for the service is very unfortunate one. II thought it's some kind of anti-Google campaign.

opminion• 14 years ago

That's one of the few cases where getting pedantic about the hyphen (or, in this case, lack of it) solves ambiguity.

jrmg• 14 years ago

People celebrating things like this is how net neutrality will die.

Sander_Marechal• 14 years ago

Exactly. Many people and companies (including Google) have fought tooth-and-nail to stop scenarios similar to this on the wired space when the telco's wanted to make websites pay for premium access from their users. And now Google is offering to foot the bill for Free Zone users?

nck4222• 14 years ago

Is Google really offering to foot the bill here? I don't see anywhere that says this is sponsored/paid for by Google, although maybe I missed it.

It seems like the mobile carriers are footing the bill for this one. Or, for now, one mobile carrier in the Philippines. It looked like it still costs money for 99.5% of all mobile internet users.

eze• 14 years ago

How does this work? Philippine users accessing this URL don't get charged at all, regardless of their data plan? If so, does Google pick up the tab?

denzil_correa2• 14 years ago

It sucks that this is just offered in the Philippines. I hope it catches on in other parts of the world.

ricardobeat• 14 years ago

I don't. We need cheaper internet access, not subsidized content by providers.

denzil_correa2• 14 years ago

Both of those would not do any harm as well.

retube• 14 years ago

The one thing, and to my mind, the most important point that is not addressed in the FAQ is "How does this work"? Presumably Google must have some arangement with the mobile carriers?

tallanvor• 14 years ago

This could be a nice way to help people save money on data usage, but there are obvious problems beyond the fact that it's only available in the Philippines:

1. The offering is carrier specific and the language suggests that even if this were expanded to other countries, you can only use it from home. 2. Two-factor authentication isn't supported, which most of us are probably using. 3. You may be getting charged for data by services running in the background.

And, of course, the expanding concept of free access to certain sites only serves to help make people think that sort of thing should be ok.

pjf• 14 years ago

An IP-over-Gmail tunnel, anyone?

dsushant• 14 years ago

What are the implications for Free Zone users, Google, the carriers, advertisers, websites, and phone OEM’s?

1. Free Zone users can access their favorite Google communication tool (G+ / Gmail) and search. 2. Google gets to serve its ads on all these properties, apart from valuable usage data and improving its products (the more people search on Google, the better its results, etc). 3. Carriers have two obvious benefits – acquisition and/or retention of price sensitive users seeking free access to G+/Gmail/Google Search and acquiring users for data plans. Another benefit could be revenue sharing for lead generation via Google’s ads. The wild card with the carriers is to launch sponsored browsing as a product – where anyone could sponsor access to one/more web services. 4. Advertisers have a compelling incentive to allocate budgets for Google’s Ad Words product. 5. SEO wars will be taken to a new level. 6. The days of feature phones with no internet access could be numbered. In the optimistic (for Google) scenario, Free Zone will increase demand for low end internet enabled phones. And OEM’s will gleefully comply.

Note - Extracted from my blog: http://u2697.wordpress.com/2012/11/08/sponsored-browsing-and...

ChrisArchitect• 14 years ago

with the amount of stuff you can get from Google Now (or it can get for you), this makes it way more useful

BoratObama• 14 years ago

Something similar to this has been available in Saudi Arabia for quite some time now. It's a subscription based access to google services with no data caps. http://www.mobily.com.sa/wps/portal/personal/mobily-connect/...

Google Free Zone - Share and search on your phone with no data charges

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