Facebook has always been on the leading edge of companies attempting to connect people in hard to reach places to the internet. Such places are often remote and as a result lack the infrastructure to let them surf the web and binge watch Game of Thrones and as a result many companies such as Google are developing new and innovative methods to connect them to the World Wide Web. Facebook’s approach has primarily been Free Basics, a system where people with phones could connect to a limited amount of websites free of cost. Unfortunately, Facebook has taken flak for the initiative due to censorship and promoting Facebook related sites through Free Basics. Now, the company has decided to seemingly take a different route, with OpenCellular, an open source, cost effective, software-defined wireless access platform aimed to improve connectivity in remote areas of the world.
“As of the end of 2015, more than 4 billion people were still not connected to the internet, and 10 percent of the world’s population were living outside the range of cellular connectivity. Despite the widespread global adoption of mobile phones over the last 20 years, the cellular infrastructure required to support basic connectivity and more advanced capabilities like broadband is still unavailable or unaffordable in many parts of the world. At Facebook, we want to help solve this problem, and we are pursuing multiple approaches aimed at improving connectivity infrastructure and lowering the cost of deploying and operating that infrastructure.”
– Kashif Ali, Engineer at Facebook.
Facebook’s main point about OpenCellular is that they will be open-sourcing the design, so as to decrease costs for operators whilst making it accessible to new participants. OpenCellular will consist of two main subsystems: General Baseband Computing which is for general purpose, and one to handle the actual radio. While the focus here is on providing wireless access to the Internet over anything from a 2G to LTE network, OpenCellular can be customized to meet the connectivity needs in both urban and rural areas. Since the devices are meant to be cheap, the hardware used to design and build the products are widely available, power-efficient, inexpensive and could be produced locally if possible.
However, the cheapness of the hardware is not reflected in the devices durability as they are expected to withstand the harshest of conditions, to ensure maximum flexibility when it comes to largescale deployment. To help with this, Facebook engineers designed an innovative mounting solution that can handle high winds, extreme temperatures and rugged climates. Furthermore, the devices can be installed by a single person and at any height, from just a few feet off the ground to the top of a tower.
Currently, OpenCellular is being tested in Facebook’s HQ, where engineers have been able to send and receive SMS messages, make voice calls and use basic data connectivity, albeit on 2G. However, this is only the first reference version of OpenCellular and as a result is subject to improvement.
Source: Facebook
