Google backs cheap internet for emerging markets

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Google and Europe's biggest bank HSBC are to back a plan to help three billion people in Africa and other emerging markets gain access to cheap, high-speed web access.

Google has joined forces with the bank and cable operator Liberty Global to back a group called O3b Networks, which stands for the "other three billion" people, to provide Internet access supported by satellites.

O3b networks said in a statement the satellites would be constructed by Thales Alenia Space and should be operational by the end of 2010. O3b aims to cover Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East.

The project intends to offer fibre performance over satellite to parts of the world where it is not commercially viable or practical to deploy a fibre network - potentially opening up the market.

The new system is expected to reduce bandwidth costs for telecommunications operators and internet service providers, enabling cost-effective voice and broadband services at high speeds, the company said in a statement.

The system will connect to core networks and third-generation cellular and Wimax towers.

"Access to the internet backbone is still severely limited in emerging markets," founder Greg Wyler said in the statement.

"Only when emerging markets achieve affordable and ubiquitous access to the rest of the world will we observe locally generated content, widespread e-learning, telemedicine and many more enablers to social and economic growth which reflect the true value of the internet."

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