Facebook said on Monday, that it would launch a satellite called AMOS-6 in partnership with France’s Eutelsat Communications to bring Internet access to large parts of sub-Saharan Africa. The satellite is a part of Facebook’s long-term goal, Internet.org, to expand internet access mainly in rural areas via mobile phones.
The Satellite is under construction and will be launched in 2016. The Internet.org platform offers free access to pared-down web services, focused on job listings, agricultural information, healthcare and education, as well as Facebook’s own social network and messaging services.
The AMOS-6 satellite will cover large parts of West, East and Southern Africa, Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post.
“To connect people living in remote regions, traditional connectivity infrastructure is often difficult and inefficient, so we need to invent new technologies,” Zuckerberg said.
Facebook has nearly 20 million users in major African countries like Nigeria and Kenya, statistics released by it showed last month, with a majority using mobile devices to access their profiles. The company opened its first African office in Johannesburg in June.
Growth in the number of people with access to the Internet is slowing, and more than half the world’s population is still offline, the United Nations Broadband Commission said last month.