Zuckerberg Wants To Fill The Sky With 'Drones, Satellites And Lasers' To Deliver The Internet To Everyone
REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says he is working to deliver a planet-wide internet service via drones, satellites and lasers: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.
Facebook is working with NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab, the Ames Research Center, and Ascenta, a U.K. company whose founders created early versions of Zephyr, whose founder created a solar-powered unmanned aircraft.
The purpose is to make sure everyone - even the very poor in developing countries - has access to the internet. So those drones are more likely to be flying over Africa than midtown Manhattan.
The project, dubbed Internet.org, is one of Zuckerberg's passion projects. It has already added 3 million people in the Philippines and Paraguay to mobile data networks with wireless cell service operators.