What Is the Outernet and Is It the Future of the Internet?

For 60 percent of the world's population, regular internet access is about as common as flying cars. Nearly 5 billion people today lack basic internet access either because they live in remote, rural areas or due to restrictive censorship on the part of the local government.

But where the internet has failed, the Outernet hopes to succeed. It's working to get a new breed of satellite-based communication off the ground, promising to give even the most remote corners of the globe access to the whole of humanity's collective knowledge. 

The Outernet is the brainchild of the same-named New York-based tech company, a free content distribution system that would provide basic web access broadcast via a series ofgeostationary and LEO satellites, as well as cube sats using a combination of datacasting and User Datagram Protocols.

Datacasting is exactly what it sounds like: the wide area broadcast of data using radio waves rather than physical mediums (like cable, telephone, or powerlines). User Datagram Protocols, or UDP, is very similar to conventional over-the-air radio or television broadcasts in that it's uni-directional. The data is beamed from its source to any device within range and there's no guarantee that it will be received, just like radio stations broadcast their signals without regard to which or how many radios are currently in range to catch it.

UDP (User Datagram Protocol) is one of the most basic forms of Internet protocol. Invented back in 1980, it's a connectionless transmission model—in that it doesn't require someone to be on the other end of the line when the data is sent.

An ambitious project

Still, some internet is way better than no internet. And with estimates placing global internet reach on par with what Outernet can provide still 15 to 20 years away, the Outernet could provide a valuable stop-gap service until conventional 'net access becomes viable.

To that end, Outernet has partnered with the World Bank in South Sudan to perform a test run of the service next July. Should it prove successful, the company hopes to increase its coverage area and begin offering the self-contained receivers, called "lanterns," from its Indiegogo campaign around that time.

And even if the Outernet itself fails to take off, it is far from the only free access system currently in development. Two of the biggest names in tech have already thrown their weight behind similar strategies. Google's Project Loon would see fleets of high altitude balloons bouncing 3G signals from the straosphere back down to the Earth's most remote regions. Facebook'sInternet.org, on the other hand, envisions swarms of drones and LEO satellites performing the same function. Even SpaceX is rumored to be building a satellite fleet to bring internet to the far-flung corners of the globe.

So, regardless of who actually comes up with the winning design, the internet is bound to become a truly global phenomenon—including the third world.