Tech giants Facebook and Google are abandoning plans to build a geostationary satellite Internet network, according to tech news site The Information.
Facebook and Google are out of the space race
Tech giants Facebook and Google are abandoning plans to build a geostationary satellite Internet network, according to tech news site The Information.
Google, which hired satellite entrepreneur Greg Wyler to prepare a satellite constellation in 2014, backed out of the project earlier this year and Facebook is also stepping away.
Facebook is dropping its plans over concerns that it will not be able to recover costs invested into the project.
Many in the satellite industry had hoped that major investment by Facebook and Google would have enhanced the overall satellite Internet industry’s outlook.
Wyler, who left Google, founded a new satellite-internet concern, with backing from Qualcomm and Virgin Galactic.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX is developing a constellation of small communications satellites of its own. And even Google remains an investor in O3b, the firm using satellites to boost internet access in emerging markets.
Wyler and other satellite entrepreneurs believe constellations made up of many small satellites could offer faster service and cost less than the larger satellites orbiting at higher altitudes.
Though Google and Facebook are stepping back from the satellite Internet space race, both companies remain interested in the development of satellite Internet. Both companies would benefit if more of the global population had access to high-speed Internet and the services they offer.
