Facebook today announced a pilot initiative

Facebook today announced a pilot initiative
to support free internet via Wi-Fi to students,
launching first in Forest City, North Carolina,
in partnership with Pangaea, a nonprofit
provider of high speed internet.
Forest City is a part of the Rutherford County
school district, which recently started a
program to provide a laptop to every middle
and high school student in the area. While
over 6,000 students have received a
computer through the program, the district
found that almost half of these
students lacked an internet connection at
home to go with the devices.
Facebook has a data center in the town, so it
was a perfect candidate to help out flesh
out internet access in the area. The first part
of the initiative will help cover 75-100
homes, and while there’s no word on
whether Facebook plans to extend the
project elsewhere, it’s a nice move by the
social media company as internet access
becomes more essential to education.