The News Minute | March 8, 2015 | 3:55 pm IST
Telecom major Bharti Airtel's chief Sunil Mital doesn't seem too excited about Facebook's ambitious 'free internet' plans as he made clear when he met Mark Zuckerburg at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
According to report in NDTV, Sunil Mittal also said that the companies should do 'philanthropy' if they stop charging for mobile internet.
Facebook's new 'internet.org' initiative enables users to access free internet for select websites if they come through a partner telecom operator.
Mittal later added in a media interaction that Zuckerburg's idea would expand the market, but telecom operators would also need to get their revenues and charge for the services.
"If you are going to make the data free, then let's do completely philanthropic projects. Government must make spectrum free, there should be free network, but it is not happening," Mittal was quoted as saying in the report.
There is no doubt that telecom operators have been facing pressure on their financials after the emergence of WhatsApp, Skype and Viber, as the rate of SMS' have gone down and so have the rate of voice calls.
Read the full report here.