Facebook Starts Work on Over-The-Air Drones To Provide Internet

| Published: Friday, March 28, 2014, 13:15 [IST]

Remember how Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg spoke about providing Internet for all by 2020 at the previously held Mobile World Congress event back in Barcelona, Spain? Well, it seems like the company intends of delivering what is promised and is now working on Internet drones to make the web available to all.

According to reports, Facebook announced on Thursday that it's working to eradicate any kind of technical and financial obstacles to bringing the Internet to the rest of the world. The company, currently, also has a team set up for the project that it's calling Facebook Connectivity Lab.

Facebook Starts Work on Over-The-Air Drones To Provide Internet

"In our effort to connect the whole world with Internet.org, we've been working on ways to beam internet to people from the sky," Zuckerberg wrote on his social network Timeline. "Our goal with Internet.org is to make affordable access to basic internet services available to every person in the world."

he also added that the team has made good progress so far over the project. "Over the past year, our work in the Philippines and Paraguay alone has doubled the number of people using mobile data with the operators we've partnered with, helping 3 million new people access the internet."

Specifically though, the Connectivity Lab team is currently working on a certain something called free-space optical communication (FSO), which is said to use light to transmit data through space with infrared laser beams.

However, in some suburban areas, Facebook intends on using long-endurance aircraft to port reliable Internet connections for all the users. In lower-density areas, on the other hand, the company is said to be testing low-Earth orbit satellites to beam Internet access to the ground.

Zuckerberg has also made the world know about the team that's currently at his disposal to make the project a reality. "Our team has many of the world's leading experts in aerospace and communications technology, including from NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab and Ames Research Center."

"Today we are also bringing on key members of the team from Ascenta, a small UK-based company whose founders created early versions of Zephyr, which became the world's longest flying solar-powered unmanned aircraft. They will join our team working on connectivity aircraft," the post added.

More information on the project is expected to arrive in the upcoming months. And as always, expect GizBot to keep you posted on everything that's happening.