Facebook Aquila Would Use Drones to Provide Internet Access

Posted March 26, 2015

Facebook, like many other companies, believes it never will be possible to connect everyone on the planet using fixed networks. The costs are simply too high to earn a return on invested capital.

“This basically mean going to the sky,” Facebook CTO Mike Schroepfer Schroepfer said.

Aquila is a Facebook project development an Internet-connected unmanned aerial vehicle with the wingspan of a 737 and the “mass of a small car.”

It would fly over regions of the developing world, providing Internet access to people who cannot presently get access.

Aquila can remain aloft for up to three months at a time, and beam high-speed internet from between 60,000 and 90,000 feet in the sky. In the past,

Facebook has talked about a fleet of perhaps 1,000 unmanned aerial vehicles providing Internet access.

Gary Kim

Gary Kim is a communications industry analyst of 30 years, ranked second globally among power influencers in mobile and among the top 10 telecom thought leaders. He currently works as a telecom/Internet conference content developer and speaker. He recently founded the Spectrum Futures conference for the Pacific Telecommunications Council, and acts as a conference advisor for PTC. He is a member of Mensa, the international organization for people with IQs in the top 2 percent.