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Comment by ysleepy | Hacker News Reader

Wow, this seems cool.

Has there been any research into OpenBTS, Osmocom, OpenLTE ?

This is really an opportunity for Facebook to show that they are serious with their efforts to bring Internet to developing regions.

Especially with the delayed adoption of Cellular tech generations on the cellphone side, I think an open source Stack is the only way to go.

If the networks are built using decommissioned tech from somewhere else, it will be brittle and won't be cost effective in the long run, especially considering energy consumption.

The only missing part now is a baseband implementation with GSM/UMTS/(LTE) support.

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"This is really an opportunity for Facebook to show that they are serious with their efforts to bring Internet to developing regions."

Facebook is not interested in bringing Internet to developing regions.

Facebook is interested in bringing facebook to developing regions.

Exactly. Just as Uber only hires human drivers as a means of bootstrapping to self-driving Teslas, Facebook only expands Internet access as a means of bootstrapping to more of itself.

Except that Uber controls the relationship with the consumer.

For Facebook, using open source to increase internet density is really just a PR stunt, as they won't own anything with the customer.

That said, their WhatsApp investment is more relevant in the third world.

Maybe they learnt their lesson from the whole Free Basics debacle and are trying to bring low cost internet to developing areas. But that's just me being optimistic. Realistic me feels like they might just use this as another trojan horse to bring Facebook rather than the internet to more people.

Well, we may as well extract what value we can from the opened code.

I really hate to break this to you, but that is what they (those people in developing regions) actually want. You may think you know what they want, or perhaps you think you know what they should want, but traffic stats don't lie. For people who have limited or no connectivity this is a far better option than waiting around for someone to deliver ponies and rainbows that never seem to arrive. If you wanted to start spending your time and money shipping them the ponies you think they really want I wish you luck, but they will be quite happy to just use Facebook in the interim while waiting for your magic ponies...

Fast forward 20 years when the people of those regions are unable to create an open and free internet because Facebook holds the legal monopoly in many of those areas (think Comcast)

If Facebook wants to please advertisers, their users (the ones clicking the ads) need to be able to get to the product the ad links to.

Why wouldn't Facebook just build a store to capture more spoils (where they presumably take a percentage)?

They do also have a vested interest in bringing internet to developed regions in a way - where else are you supposed to get the low-cost H1B labour?

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