{"id":3800,"date":"2017-03-01T13:28:25","date_gmt":"2017-03-01T13:28:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rsoftsolution.com\/blog\/facebook-digs-into-mobile-infrastructure-in-uganda-tip-aims-170m-to-startups.html"},"modified":"2017-03-01T13:28:25","modified_gmt":"2017-03-01T13:28:25","slug":"facebook-digs-into-mobile-infrastructure-in-uganda-tip-aims-170m-to-startups","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rbsitsoftwaresolution.in\/blog\/facebook-digs-into-mobile-infrastructure-in-uganda-tip-aims-170m-to-startups.html","title":{"rendered":"Facebook digs into mobile infrastructure in Uganda, TIP aims $170M to startups"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

While Google is using MWC to show off some of its advances in native apps on mobile devices \u2014 specifically<\/a> in chat apps<\/a> \u2014 the world\u2019s biggest chat app company is doing something completely different. Today, Facebook announced<\/a> that it is building a 770-kilometer (500-mile) fiber backhaul network in Uganda, in partnership with India\u2019s\u00a0Airtel<\/a> and wholesale provider BCS<\/a>, carriers that both have networking businesses in the country; and its Telecom Infrastructure Project is leading a call\u00a0to invest $170 million into telecoms infrastructure startups.<\/p>\n

Alongside this, the company is also making headway on its other efforts to play a bigger role in the infrastructure behind how\u00a0people connect to the internet (and specifically to Facebook) through its\u00a0Telecom Infrastructure Project<\/a>. Facebook\u2019s own\u00a0Voyager optical networking transponder<\/a> is now being deployed and tested<\/a> by the carriers Telia and Orange in Europe.<\/p>\n

Facebook said it expects the Uganda project \u2014 which will see \u201ctens of millions of investment\u201d from Facebook \u2014 to cover access for more than 3 million people (that\u2019s not how many will use it, but how many can potentially be covered). As a backhaul network, the purpose will be to provide more\u00a0capacity to wireless carriers\u2019 base stations so that they can offer 3G and 4G mobile data services (in many places in the developing world, carriers still can offer no more\u00a0than 2G or 2.5G).<\/p>\n

\"voyager\"The Voyager project, meanwhile, is one of a number of updates from the TIP, which was created by Facebook last year but (like Facebook\u2019s other connectivity project, Internet.org) counts a number of other members \u2014 in this case, over 450, including large and small, regional carriers; equipment and software vendors like Intel and Microsoft; and more.<\/p>\n

Other news from the TIP today included the announcement that\u00a0TIP is corralling\u00a0$170 million in investment into\u00a0startups that are building or working on telecom infrastructure solutions. This, in my opinion, is an interesting development, considering how so much of the recent period of development in startups and their funding has been focused on software solutions.<\/p>\n

Facebook and the TIP are not revealing too many details yet on which companies would be\u00a0the recipients of this funding \u2014 we have asked and will update as we learn more \u2014 but it notes that investors that are contributing to that $170 million total\u00a0include\u00a0Atlantic Bridge, Capital Enterprise, Downing Ventures, Entrepreneur First, Episode 1 Ventures,\u00a0IP Group plc, Oxford Sciences Innovation and\u00a0Touchstone Innovations, along with other investors, incubators and institutions.<\/p>\n

\"investors_teach\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWe believe this focused investment direction from these innovative investors will bring new infrastructure solutions to the industry,\u201d Facebook said in today\u2019s announcement.<\/p>\n

To be clear, this is not a fund; it\u2019s more of a conceptual idea of how much these investors are willing to invest in\u00a0startups in the area of communications infrastructure: they will have their own funds and commitments that will, in theory, get them to that total.<\/p>\n

During a meeting at MWC, Facebook VP Jay Parikh offered a for more\u00a0details on how Facebook is involved. \u201cFacebook is not actually investing in that in terms of actual money. That\u2019s the VCs. We are lending our expertise in mentoring, we help them understand how to do hackathons, how to build out their space, we will offer any expertise we can if they decide to use our open source hardware and software.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added that the company is essentially helping to bring\u00a0the knowledge it gained from running its production environment at scale and its culture to these centers. \u201cIt\u2019s more sustainable this way,\u201d he noted.<\/p>\n

To that end, there are also two new \u201cacceleration centers\u201d getting launched in the UK, spearheaded by BT, for carriers and\u00a0Facebook to consider and deploy infrastructure solutions from startups in the field. This is on top of a first center that Facebook launched in South Korea last year with SK Telecom. You can read more about TIP\u2019s other projects, which are largely in the very technical, piloting phase of networking technology, here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"parikh\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Network connectivity, and Facebook\u2019s \u201cmission to connect the world,\u201d have been longstanding side themes for the social networking company, whose bread and butter continues to be advertising on its\u00a0social network, which includes Facebook, but also Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram.<\/p>\n

Whereas Facebook usage is nearly ubiquitous in regions like North America and Western Europe, in developing markets, especially in places where the infrastructure is lacking for good internet access, it\u2019s less used, and so Facebook\u2019s connectivity efforts are in part a way of creating the right circumstances to attract more business.<\/p>\n

But those efforts, while having an overtly charitable and good goal of bridging the digital divide, have had very mixed results up to now. Internet.org<\/a> \u2014 the project where Facebook has partnered with several other companies to provide essentially \u201cfree\u201d mobile internet in selected countries \u2014 backfired when it got blocked<\/a> in India over net neutrality concerns (specifically that Facebook\u2019s initiative was helping Facebook more than anyone else). It\u2019s still managed to connect 40 million people<\/a>\u00a0with the initiative, which has continued to expand.<\/p>\n

Parikh noted in today\u2019s press conference that the company is currently focused on the Express Wifi<\/a> project in India and that we should \u201cstay tuned\u201d for any further announcements.<\/p>\n

And a test of\u00a0its Aquila drone, a \u201cplane<\/a>\u201d that beams down Internet access, had a crash as a result of a structural failure<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And\u00a0while today\u2019s news is about how Facebook appears to be\u00a0focusing more on building the exact\u00a0physical infrastructure that it has said in the past was too costly to deploy, it\u2019s also continuing to explore further wireless options, such as this plan to offer access in Africa via satellite<\/a>. That plan faced a setback when Facebook\u2019s first satellite was destroyed when SpaceX\u2019s rocket exploded last year. Parikh, however, believes that satellites are something the company remains to be interested in and that it is the best solution for remote areas (and potentially a complimentary technology to its Aquila drone efforts).<\/p>\n

The Internet.org situation in India shows how governments, businesses and the general public are indeed raising questions about what the full benefits or detriments are of companies like Facebook getting more involved in areas like connectivity. These are questions that will continue to be raised<\/a> as Facebook provides\u00a0ever-loftier presentations of its vision. Meanwhile, on a more basic level, there are ongoing questions of just how beneficial more connectivity is without better understanding of what\u2019s being shared. The rise of fake news, for example, coupled with freshly minted surfers, is a scary prospect<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Featured Image: Ken Banks<\/a>\/Flickr<\/a> UNDER A CC BY 2.0<\/a> LICENSE<\/small><\/p>\n

Article source: http:\/\/feedproxy.google.com\/~r\/techcrunch\/social\/~3\/FQJ20SXg7Uk\/<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While Google is using MWC to show off some of its advances in native apps on mobile devices \u2014 specifically in chat apps \u2014 the world\u2019s biggest chat app company <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[10,7,14,15,6,12,11],"class_list":["post-3800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-update","tag-computer-news","tag-downloads","tag-microsoft-download-news","tag-networking-updates","tag-technology-update","tag-wordpress-plugin-download","tag-wordpress-theme-download"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t