Google Invests In Broadband For Poorer Countries

Chris Wilson writes "According to the Financial Times, Google has announced their support for a new initiative called O3B to 'bring internet access to 3bn people in Africa and other emerging markets by launching at least 16 satellites to bring its services to the unconnected' by 2010. Coverage is available from Yahoo and the Wall Street Journal as well. 'The $750m project to connect mobile masts in a swath of countries within 45 degrees of the equator to fast broadband networks ... could bring the cost of bandwidth in such markets down by 95 per cent.' This will probably be the largest single investment in network infrastructure for developing countries in history. Google clearly wishes to use this project to enable broadband Internet access in developing regions, but many other things must be in place before that can happen, including fixed power infrastructure, PCs or OLPCs, technical support and skills, and useful content and services for areas with lower literacy."

Comments

Triple Play

[Anonymous Coward]

Food, water and broadband.

For only $99/month*, you could provide a child with Facebook and MySpace.

(*) For the first year of service. Offer void where prohibited by law. Not really. Please see a doctor if broadband persists for more than four hours.

I wonder what affect this will have on people...

[HungryHobo]

Will being able to communicate easily give people more ambition or will they hit 4chan first and decide that the rest of the world is a pit of evil that has to be avoided at all cost...

Re:THHGTTG

[jamesh]

I was thinking that too. And if at some point the whole world becomes too poor to afford google at all, the googleplex will be put into suspended animation until the world can afford it again...

Re:Because There's Profit To Be Had

[discord5]

Google will sell these eyeballs to advertisers.

6 billion eyeballs... I'm pretty sure there's a Nigerian guy who'll sell them to you for a lot cheaper than the cost of launching a single satellite.

Re:I wonder what affect this will have on people..

[WDot]

Things I anticipate doing once these 3 billion people are hooked up:

-Send the first goatse link
-Be the first to solicit cybersex
-and ask "a/s/l?"
-Degenerate various African languages into their equivalents of "AOLspeak."
-Accuse them of being teenage boys unless they "show pics"
-ATTN: Dear Sir/M, I am Mr. Johnathan Ashcroft. an Auditor of a BANK OF THE WASHINGTON, DC. (FCT). I have the courage to Crave indulgence for this important business believing that you will never let me down either now or in the future.

Re:LEO means intermittent

[pipatron]

Maybe you should call Google and tell them. You seem to know much more than the engineers that have been thinking about this.

Re:Because There's Profit To Be Had

[sukotto]

Yes, but he'll want you to send him 5,000 eyeballs and your adsense account info first.