This is of a large enough magnitude that I'm suspicious it could be something created out of the Project Loon announcement in terms of timing. Also, given that

This is of a large enough magnitude that I'm suspicious it could be something created out of the Project Loon announcement in terms of timing. Also, given that Facebook's mission is to "Make the world more open and connected," this is just the next logical step to me. Not everyone has extra billions hanging around that Google does, and therefore FB + partners need another method to pull it off.