Facebook is evaluating ways to allow users with slow or intermittent Internet access to view videos offline.
From 11 July, the social network will be testing a feature in India that allows users to download videos while using a reliable Internet connection, in order to watch them later when they are offline or using a slow or patchy Internet connection.
Users in India will only be able to download videos uploaded directly to Facebook, as opposed to videos shared on Facebook and watched via external video platforms such as YouTube. The videos will be saved on the user's Facebook app rather than on their device's memory, so as not to enable piracy.
As social networks developed, countries with high average Internet speeds host more and more data-heavy multimedia content such as videos, and users in countries with lower average Internet speeds often struggle to keep up.
"In markets like India, mobile data and connectivity are limited, which can leave people with poor video experience or no streaming ability at all," said Facebook in an e-mail to selected content publishers, announcing the upcoming test.
Whereas the US, home to Facebook and YouTube, ranks 14th globally by average Internet speed (14.2 Mbps or Megabits per second), India ranks 114th at an average speed of 2.8 Mbps. South Africa ranks 90th at 4.1 Mbps. These figures are derived from Akamai's State of the Internet report for Q4 of 2015.
Facebook is not the first social network to meet this challenge with a video-saving feature. YouTube began letting users save videos offline in late 2014.
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