Microsoft will expand its Airband Initiative partnerships with service providers across Latin America and Africa to provide high-speed internet access for nearly 40 million people.
The Airband Initiative, launched in 2017, initially focused on tapping into unused broadcast frequencies between TV channels (or TV white spaces) to help deliver enhanced connectivity coverage and advance digital equity in the U.S. The initiative has since increased its global presence and built out a “multi-technology, multi-frequency approach,” delivering connectivity based on what is best suited for each region, including using fixed wireless, fiber optics, Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS), or now even satellites.
Airband relies on partnerships with local and regional internet and energy access providers, telecom equipment makers and nonprofits – as well as governmental and other organizations – to accelerate local infrastructure projects.
The expanded partnerships in Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Guatemala, and Cote d’Ivoire, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Uganda represent noteworthy progress for the company’s initiative to bring internet access to a quarter of a billion people around the world, including 100 million people on the continent of Africa, by the end of 2025.
“Across both Latin America and Africa, limited access to broadband can mean that people have fewer opportunities to develop the digital fluency and skills needed to participate in the digital economy,” said Vickie Robinson, GM for the Airband Initiative, in a blog.
According to the World Economic Forum, just 37% of Latin Americans in rural areas have connectivity options, compared with 71% of the urban population.
Airband will work with Wayfree in Guatemala, Fundacion Pais Digital in Chile, Brisanet in Brazil and Anditel in Colombia, to provide access to high-speed internet for 18 million people. Microsoft said better connectivity will help address societal issues across the region including employment and access to education.
The company’s efforts on the African continent are some of Microsoft’s “most longstanding and farthest reaching,” Robinson wrote, although she said delivering connectivity on the continent can be challenging.
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With its sweeping rural areas and unreliable (or at times unavailable) electricity, Africa has a 40% internet usage rate on average. Airband is building upon its existing partnerships on the continent, including with service providers Mawingu and Tizeti, to bring underserved rural communities internet access through infrastructure including hundreds of hotspots and several solar powered towers.
The Airband Initiative in December 2022 announced a new partnership with Viasat, making it the first satellite company to work with Airband, to use satellite to reach remote areas that previously had little to no options for conventional connectivity.
“Through partnering with Microsoft’s Airband Initiative, organizations have additional support to create the infrastructure needed to provide connectivity support in many different ecosystems that ultimately drives self-empowerment and sustainable development and growth,” Robinson said.