Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

CTOnews.com, December 15 (Xinhua) over the past five years, Microsoft's Airband program has helped more than 51 million people in rural America and around the world access the Internet. Now Microsoft has announced a partnership with Viasat, which aims to bring Airband into a stage of rapid development.

The partnership, announced today at a summit of US-African leaders in Washington, D.C., will use Viasat's satellite network to provide Internet access to 10 million people around the world, including 5 million in Africa. This is part of a broader Airband program that aims to connect 2.5 billion people, including 100 million in Africa, by the end of 2025.

Vickie Robinson, general manager of the Airband program, said Africa received special attention not only because "there are so many opportunities there", but also because of the technological challenges on the continent. Only 40% of the continent has access to the Internet, and nearly 600 million Africans lack electricity.

Airband plans to provide seed investment to support the expansion of infrastructure in areas where needed. "We have an ecosystem of partners, which I think is a little different from what others do," Robinson said. "the beneficiaries of this initiative may not even know that Microsoft has played a role in providing Internet access."

Previously, Microsoft has worked with partners to provide Internet access through fixed wireless, television blank bandwidth, optical fiber or citizen broadband radio services. The newly announced Viasat partnership, the first to use satellite links, will give priority to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, Egypt, Senegal and Angola in Africa, as well as underserved regions of Guatemala, Mexico and the United States.

The map highlights Microsoft Airband's active projects in Africa with dark blue dots, and future projects with Viasat, CTOnews.com, with light blue dots. Viasat's participation in Airband is based on the company's existing relationship with Microsoft Azure Space. Another Microsoft partner is SpaceX, which is providing access to Azure cloud connections through its Starlink satellite constellation. Robinson said he did not rule out the possibility of introducing Starlink into the Airband project.

In addition, Microsoft will provide free access to LinkedIn web security courses as part of its career skills program. Teresa Hutson, Microsoft's vice president of technology and corporate responsibility, said in a blog post that the Airband initiative and cyber security training initiative are aimed at strengthening ties with Africa, which can be traced back more than 30 years.

"We are increasing our investment to help people and governments across Africa transform and prosper," Hutson said. "this is just the beginning of the next chapter."

Welcome to subscribe "Shulou Technology Information " to get latest news, interesting things and hot topics in the IT industry, and controls the hottest and latest Internet news, technology news and IT industry trends.