Google and Fidelity have made an investment of close to $1bn in SpaceX - a company who is hoping to create a network of satellites that will send internet signals from the atmosphere and provide low-cost internet access to the whole world.

SpaceX also was long term ambitions to send people to mars within 10 years. The company is worth over $10bn and has previously won $2.6bn in funding from NASA. It is being backed by Elon Musk - the man who sold PayPal to eBay.

Last week he told Business Week that the company's "focus is on creating a global communication system that would be larger than anything that has been talked about to date."

The plan involves a series of geosynchronous satellites beaming high-speed internet, Mr Musk says: "The long-term potential is to be the primary means of long-distance internet traffic to serve people in sparsely populated regions."

Google has its own 'Project Loom' that is being developed by its ambitious and secretive X Lab - it plans to send balloons orbiting lower in the earth's atmosphere - they will also transmit internet signals and provide internet access to the world's most remote regions.

Facebook is also pouring money into its collaborative project - Internet.org. The social network is working with Ericsson, Qualcomm, Samsung and Nokia and hoping to spread the internet to sparsely populated regions - possibly through the use of drones.