How Facebook and Google’s Plans to Boost Internet Access Advanced in 2015

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Some 3.2 billion people in the world are now online, the United Nations estimated late in November. That leaves 56.6 percent of the human race unconnected. And in the past year growth in the number of people who are connected slowed -- the United Nation pegs it at 6.9 percent for 2015, down from 7.4 percent in 2014. Other things happened in 2015 that might reverse that trend, though. Facebook and Alphabet, the holding company formerly known as Google, stepped up their competing campaigns to dramatically cut the cost of Internet access.

The heart of Alphabet’s assault on the UN’s Internet access figures is Project Loon, part of its X Labs division. The project has developed stratospheric helium balloons that can be steered in fleets around the globe and provide high-speed LTE connectivity to mobile devices below. Facebook has designs on the stratosphere, too. In July the company unveiled a solar-powered drone with a 42-meter wingspan, designed to use laser and radio links to beam Internet connectivity to special ground-based receivers.


How Facebook and Google’s Plans to Boost Internet Access Advanced in 2015