Facebook goes back to old technologies to connect the next billion

NEW DELHI: After abandoning its plan to develop a solar-powered drone called Aquila and grounding a helicopter drone project to connect people in remote areas, Facebook has gone back to the basics, working on technologies like mesh Wi-Fi and Express Wi-Fi in partnership with equipment manufacturers and operators.

“Our team has been developing software that simplifies network management for operators and enables them to deploy mesh Wi-Fi networks along with working on new routing framework, optimised to manage 50 or potentially even more access points,” Vish Ponnampalam, Wireless Systems Engineer at Facebook wrote in a blog post on Wednesday.

A wireless mesh network (WMN) is a communications network made up of radio nodes. A mesh refers to rich interconnection among devices . Facebook is running a pilot programme for mesh Wi-Fi networking in Tanzania and has also put teams to expand its Express Wi-Fi programme in Dubai, Israel and Ireland.

The Express Wi-Fi initiative, that offers Internet facility through public hotspots, was first launched in five countries India, Kenya, Tanzania, Nigeria and Indonesia. (IANS)