Advertisment

Facebook OpenCellular will bring connectivity to rural hinterlands

author-image
CIOL Writers
New Update
CIOL Facebook OpenCellular will bring connectivity to rural hinterlands

Facebook might not be in the wireless business but then you cannot stop Zuckerberg’s team from trying out different things. The tech titan has launched a hardware device called OpenCellular that attaches to a tree or a street lamp or a telephone pole, and from there it can drive a wireless network, including traditional 2G cell-phone networks, higher speed LTE cellular networks, and smaller Wi-Fi networks like those inside your home, office, or local coffee shop.

Advertisment

The company would be open sourcing the designs for the device, freely sharing them with the world at large, and the hope is that it can provide a simpler and less expensive way of erecting wireless networks in the most rural areas of the developing world, including parts of Africa and India.

CIOL Facebook OpenCellular will bring connectivity to rural hinterlands

“There’s not yet a viable business model for operators to set up shop and bring connectivity to rural villages,” says Subbu Subramanian, an engineering director on the project. “We want to make sure people have that connectivity—and that there’s a healthy entrepreneurial ecosystem that can spur innovation ever further.”

Advertisment

With saturated markets in the US and the Europe and more than 1.6 billion users globally, Facebook believes that the best way to expand its online empire is to expand the reach of the Internet. According to Facebook’s calculations, more than 4 billion people still don’t have access to the Internet and about 10 percent of the world’s population lives outside the range of existing cellular networks. So, the company is building a wide range of new hardware devices capable of pushing the Internet into new parts of the world, including flying drones, communication lasers, and new wireless antennas.

Subramanian sees OpenCellular as something that would allow just about anyone to set up a wireless network, even in rather rural areas. Measuring 19.5- by 8.5- by 4.5-inches, it’s something you could easily carry as you angle to install it on a tree or a telephone pole. “You could wear it like a backpack as you climb the pole,” he says. “Anyone who can climb a tree can put it up.”

CIOL Facebook OpenCellular will bring connectivity to rural hinterlands

Yes, the device still requires power and some sort of “backhaul” connection to the Internet—a wireline cable or the like. But Subramanian and team are working to keep power requirements to a minimum, and separately, Facebook is fashioning antennas that could provide wireless backhaul, streaming Internet signals from cities out into distant rural areas.

The company isn’t the lone player in the segment. Google, Facebook’s primary rival, is pushing in a similar direction too, building flying drones—as well as high-altitude balloons—designed to deliver the Internet in places that don’t already have it

facebook