UPDATED 14:53 EDT / OCTOBER 05 2015

NEWS

Facebook announces plans to beam internet access to Sub-Saharan Africa via satellite

Social media giant Facebook, Inc. announced Monday that it would be partnering with French satellite company Eutelsat Communications SA to bring free basic internet access to parts of Sub-Saharan Africa.

The new partnership is part of Facebook’s Internet.org initiative, whose goal is to introduce internet access to developing countries by building infrastructure, partnering with local service providers, educating users, and more. Of course, getting more people online is also the easiest way for Facebook to continue growing its user base at this point with over 1.49 billion people already using the social network each month.

The new partnership will use the future AMOS-6 satellite to build a broadband network that Eutelsat says is perfectly suited to connecting “low to medium density population areas.” The service is scheduled to begin in the second half of 2016, and the network capacity will be shared between Eutelsat and Facebook.

“Facebook’s mission is to connect the world and we believe that satellites will play an important role in addressing the significant barriers that exist in connecting the people of Africa,” Chris Daniels, VP of Internet.org, said in a statement. “We are looking forward to partnering with Eutelsat on this project and investigating new ways to use satellites to connect people in the most remote areas of the world more efficiently.”

Eutelsat announced that it would be creating a new company based in London that will be charged with overseeing its African network and business, and it named former Tiscali International Network CEO Laurent Grimaldi as the head of the new division.

“We are excited by this opportunity to accelerate the deployment of our broadband strategy and to partner with Facebook on a new initiative to provide Internet access services in Africa,” added Eutelsat CEO Michel de Rosen. “Eutelsat’s strong track record in operating High Throughput Satellite systems will ensure that we can deliver accessible and robust Internet solutions that get more users online and part of the Information Society.”

Image courtesy of Eutelsat Communications SA

A message from John Furrier, co-founder of SiliconANGLE:

Your vote of support is important to us and it helps us keep the content FREE.

One click below supports our mission to provide free, deep, and relevant content.  

Join our community on YouTube

Join the community that includes more than 15,000 #CubeAlumni experts, including Amazon.com CEO Andy Jassy, Dell Technologies founder and CEO Michael Dell, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger, and many more luminaries and experts.

“TheCUBE is an important partner to the industry. You guys really are a part of our events and we really appreciate you coming and I know people appreciate the content you create as well” – Andy Jassy

THANK YOU