Mark Zuckerberg, Founder and CEO of Facebook has announced the Connectivity Lab team, a dedicated team at social networking giant that has been making progress on ongoing efforts to improve and extend Internet access across the globe.[blockquote]The team is working on platforms, such as planes and satellites, to provide connectivity for communities with different population densities. For instance, solar-powered high altitude, long endurance aircraft that can stay aloft for months is been envisaged for suburban areas in limited geographical regions, to deliver fast and reliable Internet connections.[/blockquote]

Facebook and other tech companies had last year launched Internet.org, a global collaboration to bring Internet access to the two thirds of the world’s population that are yet unconnected.

According to internet.org, the Connectivity Lab team has been working on developing new platforms for connectivity on the ground, in the air and in orbit.

The team, which kicked off with the engineering experts behind Facebook’s infrastructure team and the Open Compute Project, now includes experts from Ascenta, a UK-based company with a deep expertise in designing and building high-altitude long-endurance (HALE) aircraft, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA’s Ames Research Center and the National Optical Astronomy Observatory.

The team is working on platforms, such as planes and satellites, to provide connectivity for communities with different population densities. For instance, solar-powered high altitude, long endurance aircraft that can stay aloft for months is been envisaged for suburban areas in limited geographical regions, to deliver fast and reliable Internet connections.

The team is considering Free-space optical communication (FSO), a technology that uses light to transmit data through space using invisible, infrared laser beams, to boost the speed of Internet connections provided by satellites and drones.