Facebook announced last week that it had built two new ground based technologies that will focus on delivering the internet to people who live in urban and rural cities where internet connectivity is relatively low and inaccessible.

 According to Facebook, fewer than half of the world’s population are online and 1.6 billion people don't live within range of a data network.

"The challenge is huge. More than half the world is not online," Facebook's chief technology officer Michael Schroepfer told USA TODAY.

The project uses wireless antennas that can improve the internet in urban and rural areas through two projects named Terragraph and Project ARIES.

Terragraph is designed to bring high-speed Internet to dense urban areas, reported USA Today. It's currently being tested at Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif., with plans for a bigger audition in San Jose. Rather than laying fiber optic lines, Terragraph will place small nodes or boxes on lamp posts, buildings, bus stops and other "street furniture" up to 820 feet apart to stretch the 60 gigahertz signal to offer high-speed Internet.

Still in its early stages, the goal of Project ARIES  will be to extend internet access to rural communities. Facebook reported that in 20 countries it studied, more than 90 percent of people live 25 miles from a major city. It plans to make the technology available to wireless communications researchers.