Facebook Launches Connectivity Lab to Deliver Internet Via Drones and Satellites

Facebook announced that it is launching Connectivity Lab to work on future internet technologies to provide internet connectivity to everyone in the world.

At Connectivity Lab, Facebook team will be working on a variety of technologies including solar-powered drones, satellites, and lasers with one goal of providing internet to all of us in the world. The motto of the Connectivity Lab as part of Internet.org is  “Every one of us. Everywhere. Connected”

Satellites to Deliver Internet  for Low Density Areas

Facebook’s connectivity labs is thinking about multiple technologies to deliver internet at different scale. For example, to provide internet to areas with low population density a solution is to use a set of satellites orbiting at low earth orbit talking to each other using laser technologies and providing internet. But the problem is that the signal from satellites at that height is weaker.

Drones to Deliver Internet for Suburban Areas

However, the challenges in delivering internet to high population density suburban-like areas are completely different. A possible solution is to have solar-powered drones/planes circle around in air at 20km height providing internet.

And Facebook wants to work on all these problems using innovative technologies and awesome team of people. Facebook seems to have already got a core of pioneers in this research area to start working on the problems. Learn more about Facebook’s Connectivity Lab by watching the videos below. The one by Yael Maguire, the Engineering director of Facebook Connectivity lab, explains the innovations needed to scale the internet connectivity of the world from 1/3 of the world to everyone in the world .

Passionate about internet technologies? Facebook is hiring talented people to work on future internet technologies. Here is the list of latest available jobs.

Here is full text of Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook post announcing the launch of Connectivity Lab.

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.

Today, we’re sharing some details of the work Facebook’s Connectivity Lab is doing to build drones, satellites and lasers to deliver the internet to everyone.

Our goal with Internet.org is to make affordable access to basic internet services available to every person in the world.

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.

We’re going to continue building these partnerships, but connecting the whole world will require inventing new technology too. That’s what our Connectivity Lab focuses on, and there’s a lot more exciting work to do here.

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.

You can find more details on our efforts below. We’re looking forward to working with our Internet.org partners and operators worldwide to deploy these technologies and deliver on the dream of connecting the world.