COAI inducts Facebook as Associate Member

COAI, the Mobile Communications Association representing the largest mobile service Operators and the majority of telecom equipment manufacturers, as well as other communication services and product companies in India, has announced the induction of Facebook India Online Services Pvt. Ltd. as an Associate Member of the Association. COAI’s Associate Membership comprises of companies that manufacture or support the functioning, promotion, research development and evolution of Mobile Communications Services.

COAI’s other Associate Members include Alcatel Lucent India Ltd., Cisco Systems India Pvt. Ltd., Ericsson India Pvt. Ltd., IBM India Pvt. Ltd, GTL Infrastructure Ltd., Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd., Indus Towers Ltd, Intel Corporation, Nokia Solutions and Networks Pvt. Ltd., Qualcomm India Pvt. Ltd. and ZTE India Pvt. Ltd.

Founded in 2004, Facebook’s mission is to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected. People use Facebook to stay connected with friends and family, to discover what’s going on in the world, and to share and express what matters to them. Facebook has more than 1.32 billion monthly active users globally, including over 100 million monthly active users in India.

Ankhi Das, Public Policy Director – India & South Asia, Facebook said: “Over 85% of the world’s population lives in areas with existing cellular coverage, yet only about 30% of the total population accesses the internet. Affordability and awareness are significant barriers to internet adoption. Facebook believes that overcoming these barriers and connecting people has immense value, from empowering people to exercise their rights to freely express themselves, promoting transparency and democratic values and allowing people to access affordable data services in areas such as health care, education and information, which they otherwise cannot afford.  Access = opportunity – creating more economic, social and political opportunities for everybody.”

She further added, “Joining COAI as an associate member reflects our focus on mobile technologies, access and our continued desire to work in collaboration with the industry to increase connectivity. We look forward to playing an active role as a member.”

Rajan S Mathews, Director General, COAI, said: “We welcome Facebook India Online Services Pvt. Ltd. to the COAI family. Social Networking, especially Facebook, has changed the way Indians work, play, communicate, socialize and do business. We believe this will further grow to become a crucial part of and influence the socio-economic culture in the country. We feel that Facebook’s active participation in COAI activities will result in mutual value addition and bring the much needed synergy of functioning between the service providers and the content/VAS players.”

Having started as an association for mobile service providers, COAI has today expanded to be a thought leader in the telecom and broadband industry, with members including cellular service providers, telecom infrastructure companies, and telecom equipment manufacturers; and still expanding to include other allied and critical stakeholders of the sector.