Facebook has plans to connect the 2/3 of the world that remains "offline" to the Internet via satellites, lasers and unmanned aerial vehicles (drones).
In particular, last Thursday, details were published about the work of the company's Connectivity Lab. As its founder, Mark Zuckerberg, wrote on the popular social network, "in our effort to connect the whole world at Internet.org, we are working on ways to beam the Internet to people from the sky. Today, we are sharing some details about the work of Facebook's Connectivity Lab in building drones, satellites and lasers to provide Internet to everyone. Our goal with Internet.org is to make affordable access to basic Internet services possible for every person in the world.".
As Zuckerberg notes, there has been significant progress so far, as in the past year, Facebook's work in the Philippines and Paraguay resulted in doubling the number of people using mobile data on the providers with which it had a partnership, bringing three million people online.
"We will continue these partnerships, but connecting the whole world will require the discovery of new technologies. That's what the Connectivity Lab is focused on, and there's a lot of exciting work still there," Zuckerberg said in his post.
Last year, Facebook and other tech companies launched Internet.org, an international collaboration aimed at bringing internet to the two-thirds of the world's population who don't have access. A key part of this is developing new platforms for connectivity on the ground, in the air and in orbit. Facebook is collaborating with experts from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Ames Research Center, the National Optical Astronomy Observatory, the UK's Ascenta and other companies on Internet.org.
The basic approach to the whole thing is that different sized communities need different solutions, and new platforms, including aircraft and satellites, are already being developed to do this. As reported on the Internet.org website, solutions such as high-endurance unmanned aircraft that would fly at high altitudes and could stay aloft for months, powered by solar energy, as well as satellites in low and geosynchronous orbits are being considered.
"For all of these systems, the team is looking at FSO (Free-space optical communication) communications as a way to use light to transmit data via invisible, infrared laser beams. FSO is a promising technology that could allow us to dramatically increase the speed of Internet connections provided by satellites and drones," it adds.
Similar plans have been announced by Google, which plans to provide Internet access via balloons.
Source: naftemporiki.gr
