Facebook announced it is teaming with French communications company Eutelsat in a partnership to beam the Internet down to Africa from a satellite.

The two companies are working together in a multi-year agreement with Israeli satellite communications firm Spacecom to buy up the entire broadband capability of the AMOS-6 satellite. It will allow Facebook and Eutelsat to beam Internet connectivity to more than 14 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Eutelsat Communications said the satellite Internet plan is due to be activated in the second half of 2016, adding it had identified "pent-up demand for connectivity" in the regions of Africa it plans to connect, which are often lacking in the infrastructure for access to reliable fixed or mobile networks.

"Satellite networks are well suited to economically connecting people in low- to medium-density population areas," the company stated.

How It Works

Of course, a satellite cannot beam Internet signals directly to these regions without hardware on the ground to receive it.

So according to an ComputerWorld, the plan on the ground is use terminals with antennas about the size and shape of the average consumer satellite TV dish, each about two and a half feet in diameter.

Those terminals will be linked via the AMOS-6 satellite to dedicated Internet gateways in France, Italy, and Israel. The AMOS-6 carries 36 Ka-band transponders, 24 of which could be used at the same time to beam the Internet. For better performance, Facebook and Eutelsat intend to use only 18.

Who Pays?

The $200 million satellite is scheduled for launch by the end of this year, and it will also deliver TV service to parts of Europe and the Middle East.

(Photo : Spacecom) An example of Spacecom's signal coverage. This map shows coverage from the AMOS-5 satellite.

Interestingly, Facebook has not commented on how it will support the cost of renting the AMOS-6, and while Eutelsat also plans to offer connectivity to more affluent users and businesses with larger antennas through a commercial Internet service offering, the company has neither detailed what it would charge for that service.

Internet.org and "Free Basics"

Facebook, for its part, famously wants to bring free web services to people, as the first connections to the Internet begin to take hold across the globe through its "Internet.org" initiative. Since launching through partnerships with local mobile carriers, the service has expanded to 19 countries, including parts of Africa and India.

Internet.org has since drawn criticism for being described as a philanthropic initiative, when the benefits to Facebook's bottom line -- introducing people to the Internet for the first time through the company's own services and apps -- seem clear.

This year, as we previously noted, Internet.org also drew criticism from Indians arguing that Facebook's choosing which free services and apps are available to newly connected Internet denizens violates net neutrality.

After the last round of criticism, Facebook recently rebranded the web services it offers as "Free Basics," and opened up its platform to 60 new developers.

The Connectivity Race is On

Facebook is quickly making its way across the globe, and it has other initiatives it is following, besides the AMOS-6 satellite and mobile partnerships with Free Basics. The company is still working on the solar powered UAV, Aquila, which it hopes will be able to fly indefinitely and deliver Internet to the ground thousands of feet below.

Meanwhile, Google still has its Project Loon initiative, which is similar to Aquila except it uses large weather balloons to stay aloft. And Tesla inventor Elon Musk recently filed plans with the FCC to launch his own Internet-beaming satellites. Ironically, as Engadget mentioned, it will be Musk's Falcon 9 rocket that launches Facebook and Eutelsat's AMOS-6 into orbit later this year.

The race is on to connect the rest of the globe, and today it looks like Facebook is clearly in the lead.