Facebook to launch its own internet satellite ‘Athena’ by next year
Under the plan to connect billions of people who are still offline, Facebook is preparing to launch their own internet satellite ‘Athena’, which will be installed in the Earth’s atmosphere at the beginning of 2019. This information has been given in the report of The Wired.
It was reported in the report that according to an application filed by Facebook under the name of Pointview LLC in front of the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the project was designed to provide broadband access efficiently to unserved and underserved areas across the globe.
Although Facebook is not the only company working on the Internet to increase access to the internet through the Satellite of Low Earth Orbit. Elon Musk’s Space X and SoftBank supported, OneWeb are two other major companies, who have similar ambitions. The Wired report said that Facebook has also confirmed the Athena project.
“Although, at this time we have nothing to share about specific projects, we believe that satellite technology will be an important basis for the next generation broadband infrastructure,” said the report in a statement quoted by a Facebook spokesman. . This will make it possible to bring broadband connectivity to rural areas, where there is lack of internet connectivity or existence.
