Facebook testing wireless Internet service in California

Facebook is testing a high-speed wireless Internet service in San Jose, CA, the company announced. Details of the technology are scarce, and San Jose residents won’t have access to the service during the test, so as a practical matter the announcement is nothing more than an attention-grabbing headline. But the announcement is important nonetheless because it’s the latest signal from an edge provider – a provider of digital content, applications, or services – that it’s interested in building the network that carries its content.

Facebook made news last year when its Internet-delivering drone crashed, but the most visible attempt by Silicon Valley to build infrastructure was Google Fiber, an initiative that never lived up to the hype. Google Fiber announced late last year that it would halt its build-out plans and cut half its staff, and now says it’s exploring fixed wireless options to get into the broadband business.

As Facebook aims to compete in the wireless Internet market, it would do well to heed Google Fiber’s example: building and maintaining a modern communications network is expensive and complicated work that requires a trained, skilled workforce.

Links:

Facebook is testing high-speed wireless internet service in California (Business Insider, Apr. 19, 2017)

Google Fiber halts build-out (Speed Matters, Oct. 27, 2016)

Google Fiber – there’s not much “there” there (Speed Matters, Sept. 2, 2016)