ORANGE Kenya has announced free access to Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia after a deal signed in January with owners Wikimedia.

Subscribers of Orange who use a mobile internet enabled phone will be able to access Wikipedia as many times as they want at no cost through their mobile browser.

According to Telkom Kenya CEO Mickael Ghossein, Orange is keen on creating and raising awareness on the benefits of Wikipedia To its over 70 million customers in Africa and the Middle East. "In countries where access to information is not always readily available, we are making it simple and easy for our customers to use the world's most comprehensive online encyclopaedia in both Kiswahili and English", Said Mickael Ghossein.

The service is geared at supporting Wikimedia Foundation's initiative of spreading free knowledge to the billions of people around the world, whose primary opportunity to access the internet is via a mobile device. Kenya becomes the second country in Africa after Uganda to benefit from this major partnership signed between the Orange Group and the Wikimedia Foundation. Wikipedia also plans to enable a functionality soon that will notify users when they log on to the paid up pages.