Facebook's next big ambitious project is to make Internet accessible to everyone around the world. To make it happen, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has announced that they will use drones, satellites and lasers.
On Thursday, March 27, Zuckerberg posted a status on Facebook, sharing some updates about the frontier and giving a few hints on their future plans to reach the goal.
"We've made good progress so far. 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," wrote the 29-year-old Internet entrepreneur.
Zuckerberg said that Facebook will continue their partnership with the operators in the two countries, but claimed that the online social networking service will need new technology to reach other parts of the world, and that is currently what Facebook's Connectivity Lab is working on.
At the latter part of the post, Zuckerberg revealed that Facebook is currently collaborating with NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab and Ames Research Center for the grand initiative, and announced that the team has just gotten bigger now that they are also working with a small UK-based company Ascenta for a connectivity aircraft. Founders of the said company were the one's responsible for the early versions of Zephyr, the longest flying solar-powered unmanned aircraft in the world.
According to a press release published on Internet.org, two thirds of the world's population doesn't still have access to Internet, and in order to connect them to the world, the team is currently developing new delivery platforms.
"The team's approach is based on the principle that different sized communities need different solutions and they are already working on new delivery platforms-including planes and satellites-to provide connectivity for communities with different population densities," the press release detailed.
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