How Facebook plans to use drones to connect the entire world to the web

TORONTO – Facebook has revealed more about its plan to connect the entire world to the web and it involves everything from satellites, to laser beams and drones.

The social network’s creator Mark Zuckerberg announced Thursday that Facebook’s Connectivity Lab is working to build drones, satellites and lasers that will help “to beam Internet to people from the sky.”

“The team’s approach is based on the principle that different sized communities need different solutions and they are already working on new delivery platforms—including planes and satellites—to provide connectivity for communities with different population densities,” read a web page detailing the technology behind the project known as Internet.org.

READ MORE: Facebook aims to get the world online

According to the site, solar-powered high altitude unmanned aircraft would be deployed in suburban areas in limited geographical regions for reliable Internet connections.

Low density areas would get low-Earth orbit and geosynchronous satellites that would beam Internet to the ground.

“FSO is a promising technology that potentially allows us to dramatically boost the speed of internet connections provided by satellites and drones.”

WATCH: Facebook’s Yael Maguire discusses the technology involved in Internet.org

The Internet.org initiative, announced in August, vows to develop a plan to make the Internet accessible to the two-thirds of the world who are not yet connected – about five billion people in total.

The group also includes Korean electronics giant Samsung, Finnish handset maker Nokia and wireless chip maker Qualcomm Inc.

After announcing the project in August, Zuckerberg said Internet.org was merely a “rough plan,” but despite Thursday’s announcement the Facebook creator has yet to give a timeline for the project.

The social networking giant had partnered with experts in aerospace and communications technology, including NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab and research center, to work on the project.

The team from Ascenta, a U.K.-based company that specializes in building high-altitude long endurance aircraft, will also be involved.

READ MORE: Facebook joins the fight to connect the entire world to the web

But Facebook isn’t the first to announce an ambitious and high-tech plan to get the world online.

Internet giant Google began launching Internet-beaming antennas into the stratosphere aboard giant, jellyfish-shaped balloons in June with hopes to get the entire planet online.

Dubbed “Project Loon,” the initiative is designed to deliver Internet signals to areas where Internet access has been traditionally hard to get by floating these balloons in the stratosphere.