In early 2013, Facebook sent a team of Android engineers to Nigeria to test the Facebook app on local wireless networks.  The group of engineers landed, bought Android phones and SIM cards, and tried to boot up the Facebook app. It didn't work. The network connection was too weak to support the app. The engineers returned home and wiped over months of work to build a more usable version.  This visit was a wake-up call for Facebook: Global expansion requires building apps for users who don't have a mobile device with 4G capabilities. Apps for the developing world need to operate under conditions where Internet is spotty, data plans don't exist, and the new iPhone arrives years after its launch.  Facebook has more than one billion monthly active users on mobile, but the company is still working to build apps for emerging markets. It completed similar test visits in the Philippines and South America last year.  Those on-the-ground excursions may soon be a thing of the past. Not because Facebook stopped caring about the results, but because the company found a more efficient way to test apps right from home (and save money on airfare in the process).  Facebook, alongside Internet.org partner Ericsson, will open the Internet.org Innovation Lab at its Menlo Park, California, headquarters sometime this summer, and will then be able to replicate the mobile network environments of more than 20 different locations around the world.  The lab, which is an actual physical room on Facebook's campus, is RF-shielded — meaning it uses electromagnetic shields to keep other network signals out while enabling Facebook to manipulate an environment they may find in a developing country.  The lab was on display at Facebook's F8 developer conference Wednesday in San Francisco. Phones programmed to simulate the network environment found in India were on hand so app developers could test how their apps perform outside the U.S.  Just like Facebook's engineers, many developers were surprised to find their app did not look as pretty in the light of a different network.  Facebook set up a sample Internet.org Innovation Lab at the company's F8 developer conference Wednesday.  "I think it comes as a shock initially," says Joe Bruccoliere, director of device and application verification with Ericsson, who was on hand Wednesday to help run the lab. "I won't say they weren't prepared, but I think when they actually see it firsthand they get a little insight into what that user's going to experience when they download that app in that particular market... [Improvement] comes from first-hand knowledge."  The lab is one part of the broader Internet.org initiative announced by Facebook and telecommunications partners like Ericsson last fall. Its goal is to bring Internet access to everyone in the world, and part of providing Internet access is giving users things to do online.  Enter mobile app developers, who will benefit greatly from the innovation lab. Developers will be able to sign up for multi-hour sessions at the lab to test their products and receive feedback from Facebook and Ericsson engineers along the way.  The major challenges of building an app for emerging markets revolves around download speed and latency within the app, says Bruccoliere. Many mobile users don't have data plans, and WiFi isn't reliable. This puts pressure on developers to build apps with better data compression tools. If a user has to wait too long for the app to load, he may abandon it all together.  More reliable mobile apps benefit Facebook, too, says Ameet Suri, a product manager with the Internet.org Innovation Lab. Many of Facebook's future users aren't online today, and Suri says Facebook gives them a reason to explore the web. People will only want to explore if there is something there for them to discover — like cool apps.  "We are trying to use Facebook as an onramp," says Suri. "You can have Facebook as a basic service for free, so you can use it, get a taste of it, and if you like it go and get a data package for yourself."  Vincent Villalta believes there's truth to this connection. Villalta works for IMS, a mobile development company in El Salvador, and was testing one of his company's app, Multiplaza App, at the Innovation Lab Wednesday. He says the simulated network is similar to the situation in El Salvador, where 3G or 4G LTE is only available in the capital city, San Salvador.  In El Salvador, Villalta says mobile use is growing — and not surprisingly, Facebook is growing right along with it.  "In [El Salvador]," he says, "people don't go to church. People don't have money to eat. But they have Facebook."  Thanks to the rise of mobile usage worldwide — and Facebook's role as a facilitator — it looks like Internet.org may be bring the world more than just Internet access. It will also bring them Facebook.  Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.
Facebook's is building its app (and helping others build theirs) in hopes of attaining a lofty goal: getting the whole world online.