The first four of 12 satellites in a new constellation to provide affordable, high-speed internet to people in nearly 180 "under-connected" countries, were shot into space on Tuesday, the project's developers said.

The orbiters, part of a project dubbed O3b for the "other 3 billion" people with restricted internet access, were scheduled to be lifted by a Russian Soyuz rocket from Kourou in French Guiana at 1854 GMT.

O3b and other advanced satellite initiatives will bring internet to the under-connected.

"We are very close to launching a network that has the potential to change lives in very tangible ways and that is a tremendous feeling," O3b Networks chief technical officer Brian Holz said in a statement before the launch.

The project was born from the frustrations of internet pioneer Greg Wyler with the inadequacy of Rwanda's telecommunications network, while travelling there in 2007.