Facebook and Qualcomm in a new partnership designed to promote 60GHz networking in urban areas.
This week keeps getting better for the Taiwanese computer maker Quanta. Over the weekend, Google was reportedly working on a standalone Augmented Reality headset that will use new Qualcomm chips. And now the Tech giants, Facebook has now enlisted Qualcomm to provide the tech for its gigabit Wi-Fi project that is meant to make sending data through routers more efficient and increase internet speeds.
The project will be called the Terragraph Project and it’s been in the works since last year, Facebook first announced it. The Terragraph Project, a “multi-node wireless system that focuses on bringing high-speed internet connectivity to dense urban areas.” The project comes as part of Facebook’s belief that everyone deserves a consistent, high-bandwidth internet experience, and in that aspect there are many obstacles that hamper it.
In developing economies, mobile networks are simply not fast enough. In developed economies, infrastructure is unable to keep up with the growth of the “exponential growth in the consumption of photos and video at a higher resolutions.
The goal of Facebook and Qualcomm’s new internet effort is to create high-speed wireless internet for users. However, it also seeks to achieve these speeds without as much costs as what it takes to deploy fiber internet.
New Qualcomm chipsets will be integrated with the Terragraph technology, The new effort will allow the two companies use an 60 GHz technology to broadcast the wireless signals. This would enable customers to receive a signal even in areas that are densely packed with buildings, such as a city and will increase the broadband connections to higher speed and provide a fixed connection access(FCA)
Irvind Ghai, Vice President of Product Management at Qualcomm Atheros, said in a statement.
“Our collaboration with Facebook will bring advanced 11ad and pre-11ay technologies to market increasing broadband penetration and enabling operators to reduce their capex for last mile access,”
He added “Terragraph cloud controller and TDMA architecture coupled with Qualcomm Technologies solution’s 10 Gbps link rate, low power consumption and early interference mitigation techniques will help make gigabit connectivity a reality.”
Yael Maguire, vice president of connectivity at Facebook in a vote of thanks speech explained that :
“We’re excited to work with Qualcomm Technologies to advance the adoption of pre-802.11ay and 802.11ad 60GHz technologies and build a robust ecosystem of interoperable solutions based on Terragraph,”
Also added that “With Terragraph, our goal is to enable people living in urban areas to access high-quality connectivity that can help create new opportunities and strengthen communities.”
Trials of the new technology are expected to begin in mid-2019. But the companies didn’t announce which cities would receive the service first, but Facebook previously suggested that Terragraph would be tested in San Jose.