We know that Facebook wants to bring internet to far-flung areas of the globe where there’s still no connectivity, it plans on using satellites and drones for this purpose and has been working hard to expand the efforts. The company today announced that it has teamed up with French satellite operator Eutelsat in order to bring internet connectivity to sub-Saharan Africa. A multi-year agreement has been signed with Spacecom, which provides satellite communications, for the AMOS-6 satellite to bring internet access to large parts of sub-Saharan Africa by the second half of 2016.
Facebook has joined this effort under its Internet.org initiative which has already brought internet to impovrished communities in third world countries, the idea is to provide essential web services for free to communities that not yet have access to these vital services.
Internet.org was launched in Africa some two years ago and by now it’s up and running in close to 20 countries across the globe. Facebook is testing drones powered by the sun to deliver connectivity to even further corners of the globe.
A statement sent out by Eutelsat says that this partnership with Facebook is going to enable users in those areas to get online using “off-the-shelf” that’s affordable so they won’t have to spend a fortune on equipment.
Filed in . Read more about Facebook. Source: news.eutelsat