To make the dream of millions of people around the world, but above all the dream of Mark Zuckerberg, come true, Facebook's Internet.org initiative is testing a method for delivering the Internet via laser.
The idea behind Facebook’s Connectivity Lab is that by using lasers on drones and satellites, they could beam a message almost anywhere.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says the technology could “dramatically increase the speed of sending data over long distances.”
While the rays in the image below are visible, Zuckerberg says they won't actually be. Zuckerberg didn't explain how the program would work in his post on the social network, but Facebook has already demonstrated the method.
Facebook's Connectivity Lab has been working with drones for some time, and Facebook has released a whitepaper (PDF) that describes a plan to use Free Space Optics to distribute internet with lasers.
Facebook said: “The lasers used in FSO (Free Space Optics) systems provide extremely high bandwidth and capacity, just like terrestrial fiber optic networks,” but it also noted that the lasers must be precisely calibrated and “requires line-of-sight between the two ends of the connection, which means they won’t work through clouds and are very vulnerable to bad weather.”
See Zuckerberg's post
As part of our Internet.org efforts, we're working on ways to use drones and satellites to connect the billion people...
Posted by Mark Zuckerberg on Wednesday, July 1, 2015
