Facebook Solar Drones Aim to Transmit Internet to Just About Everywhere.
Posted on Apr 1, 2014
AP Images. Titan Aerospace: Solara 50 aircraft
Facebook has bought a design company called Somerset in order to create a solar-powered drone program that will work in synchronicity with
“geosynchronous satellites” designed to hover above us at 65,000 feet.
In an effort to bring Internet service to the two-thirds of the world without online access, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is planning on using his
drone program to expand Internet.org, a venture created with the stated goal of making the Internet a globally available information resource. (This
will also allow Facebook to significantly expand its user base, currently at 1.3 billion.)
Zuckerberg’s drone-powered scheme will also be in direct competition with Google’s Internet balloon program—called Project Loon, no less—which serves
the same purpose. According to the BBC, Google released 30 balloons in New Zealand in June.
Meanwhile, Internet.org engineer Yael Maguire weighed in on The Guardian about how Facebook’s drone program works:
“In suburban environments we are looking at a new type of plane architecture that flies at 20,000 metres, at the point where the winds are the
lowest. It’s above commercial airlines, it’s even above the weather. They circle around and broadcast internet down but significantly closer than a
satellite.”
Invisible infrared laser beams, which can carry large amounts of information at high speeds across space using free-space optical communication
technology (FSO), will connect the satellites to each other and to receivers on the surface of the Earth.
Comcast and cellphone providers such as AT&T might also join this space race, but at this point it looks as if the two online giants will battle
it out with the help of their corporate-backed flying objects.
Originally posted by David K
These April Fools Day jokes are great!
PaulW - 4-3-2014 at 09:33 AM
A similar concept was proposed by Burt Rutan years ago whereby he would fly planes that relay com and TV signals over distant areas. These piloted
planes had a very long flight duration and he would have a bunch of them and always keep them in the air above the weather.
Nobody wanted to fund his proposal.
Times and technology change so now the time may be right now days?
Zuckerberg or even Musk are other inventive persons and probably can make it happen. Both have $$ & good success record.
