Facebook is to launch a satellite in the second half of 2016 that will provide internet access to remote areas of Africa.
"I'm excited to announce our first project to deliver internet from space," founder Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a Facebook post.
A partnership with French-based Eutelsat will see Facebook get shared access to the satellite. "To connect people living in remote regions, traditional connectivity infrastructure is often difficult and inefficient, so we need to invent new technologies," Zuckerberg wrote.
The project forms part of the social network's controversial Internet.org initiative, which is seeking to get more people online in developing countries. Critics have argued the service violates net neutrality and is creating a closed, Facebook-centric version of the internet rather than providing open access for all.
To date Internet.org has launched in countries such as India, Indonesia, Colombia and Kenya. Until April 2015, it provided free access via mobile data networks to a limited number of basic websites and services, but after widespread protests in India this was expanded to any sites that met Facebook's development criteria.
Internet.org's new project will focus on sub-Saharan Africa, with its AMOS-6 satellite launching into a geostationary orbit to cover large parts of west, east and southern Africa. Zuckerberg said Facebook would work with local partners in the region to ensure communities could access internet services via satellite.
How that will work in practice remains unclear. In a statement Eutelsat said people would be able to a access the network using "off the shelf" products.
"The capacity is optimised for community and direct-to-user internet access," a Eutelsat statement explained. The company added that the network would bring access to communities "beyond the range" of fixed and mobile terrestrial networks.
Unlike other Internet.org projects, access to Facebook's satellite internet in Africa may not be free, with neither Facebook nor Eutelsat mentioning the user cost of the new service.
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