Facebook announces free broadband for Europe plan
Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg has announced that the technology company is planning to bring free broadband to Europe in the coming years.
In a Facebook Q&A, he revealed that the Facebook-led Internet.org scheme will be used anywhere where there is a problem with people getting widespread access to broadband.
The programme is already in use in Colombia, India, Kenya and Zambia but Mr Zuckerberg admitted it may be some time until Facebook targeted Europe.
He said: "We're starting off by prioritising the countries with the most unconnected people and by working with network operators and governments who are most excited about working with Internet.org to get everyone online in their countries."
The European Commission has already outlined its goal for all Europeans to have access to download speeds of at least 30Mbps by 2020. Ideally half of people living on the continent will have broadband speeds of at least 100Mbps by that time.
It is thought unlikely that the Internet.org scheme will ever need to come to the UK despite the problems the government has had in bringing superfast broadband connections to the many rural parts of the country, leaving many firms without access to fast and reliable internet.
Mr Zuckerberg also responded to a question from the British businessman Richard Branson, who asked if the Internet.org scheme had the potential to boost entrepreneurship all over the world.
"Think about how many brilliant entrepreneurs there are out there who have great ideas and the will to change the world, but just lack basic tools to do so today," said the Facebook co-founder and chief executive.
"If you go by the population, almost 2/3 of these entrepreneurs don't have internet access today. Once they get connected, we may have 3x as many good ideas and amazing new services built that will benefit everyone around the world."
Businesses looking to move services into the cloud should evaluate the performance of their existing network and could consider setting up a leased line or MPLS network.
(Image: Maxi Gago)
