Facebook Looks to Drones to Boost Internet Access - PC Magazine ~ Electronic Gadgets

Facebook has acquired key members of U.K.-based Ascenta to help it reach the goal of worldwide Internet access.

Can drones help expand broadband availability? Facebook's new Connectivity Lab is looking at the high-flying devices - not to mention satellites and lasers - to assist in providing Internet access worldwide.

In a blog post, Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg said his Internet.org outreach organization has "made good progress so far," citing work in the Philippines and Paraguay, where 3 million more people now have access to the Web.

"We're going to continue building these partnerships," he pledged, "but connecting the whole world will require inventing new technology, too."

To that end, the Connectivity Lab team has been working on developing new platforms for connectivity "on the ground, in the air and in orbit," according to Internet.org.

The team includes aerospace and communications tech experts with backgrounds at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab and Ames Research Center, as well as the National Optical Astronomy Observatory. But Zuckerberg also revealed a new partner: U.K.-based Ascenta, whose five-person team worked on early versions of Zephyr, the longest-flying solar-powered unmanned aircraft.

Facebook is "bringing on key members of the team from Ascenta," Zuckerberg said, who will be "working on connectivity aircraft."

According to Bloomberg, the acquisition cost Facebook $20 million—a drop in the bucket compared to recent purchases of WhatsApp ($16 billion) and Oculus VR ($2 billion).

Facebook did not immediately respond to PCMag's request for confirmation.

Zuckerberg launched Internet.org in August, with the intent of increasing access to the Web, and bringing the Internet "to the next 5 billion people." As of now, about one-third of the world's population has online access.

Industry heavyweights like Ericsson, MediaTek, Nokia, Opera, Qualcomm, and Samsung have thrown their support into the venture, pledging to develop joint projects, share knowledge, and mobilize organizations and governments to bring the world online.

But it's going to take more than connection control, more capacity, and faster data speeds to turn the entire globe onto the Web. So Facebook will take to the air. The only problem: different communities need different solutions. So where satellites may do the trick in lower-density areas, solar-powered drones are better suited for more high-frequency locations.

"There's a fabulous set of problems to work on to try to figure out … how to make all those satellites interconnect with each other to make sure that you have an Internet backbone that's essentially flying through the air as these satellites are moving by you," Yael Maguire, Facebook's director of engineering, explained in a video (below).

Located 20 kilometers above the earth, these drones, which can stay aloft for months at a time, will broadcast the Internet to local users at significantly higher speeds and better connection than a satellite would.

"We're just at the beginning," Maguire said. "There's some awesome problems to solve."

Google has a similar Internet-connection effort, dubbed Project Loon, which is using base stations and high-flying balloons to increase Internet access.

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