Mark Zuckerberg, Founder of Facebook, met Sunil Mittal, founder of Airtel, to discuss potential partnership in taking the internet to the next billion users. The two have met at least three times over the last two years.

While the details of the meeting were not revealed, sources close to the development said that Zuckerberg is keen to partner Airtel for Digital India projects and expanding Free Basic Service in Africa. Airtel and Facebook have an ongoing partnership to offer free access to websites in Zambia.

In India, Facebook has so far managed to get only Reliance Communications to roll out the programme, under the Internet.org platform. Under the Free Basic Service, Facebook offers free access to select websites. The telecom operator foots the bill but gets revenues when users start browsing websites that are not part of the free offer. But this has hit controversy after netizens and activists termed the programme as being against the principles of net neutrality.

Mittal had also met the Facebook founder over dinner in Barcelona last year.

The meetings come at a time when telecom companies in general are worried about the disruption being caused by social networking sites and internet services companies.

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