Internet: the sky’s the limit
Facebook appears to have begun negotiations with a view to purchasing Titan Aerospace, a manufacturer of solar powered drones and atmospheric satellites, designed to fly at an altitude of around 20 kilometers, and able to stay in the air for up to five years at a time, covering more than four million kilometers in the process, and with zero maintenance.
It’s worth taking a look at the company’s website to get a better idea of these huge craft with wing spans of some fifty meters, covered in solar panels, but incredibly light, weighing just 160 kilograms. They can carry a payload of around 32 kilos of equipment, and reach speeds of up to 104 kph. Commercial rollout is planned for next year, and they could be put to use for a range of scientific and agricultural monitoring activities, and even be used to offer telecoms in remote or disaster-struck areas, as well as helping map the earth or provide global positioning. Ars Technica wrote about them in August of last year.
Facebook’s likely purchase, at an estimated cost of some $60 million, seems to fit into the company’s Internet.org, project, which aims to provide access to the more than two thirds of the planet still not connected.
There are clear parallels here with Google’s Project Loon, which would substitute traditional operators who cannot make money by providing internet access in remote areas.
This type of internet coverage, whether through drones or balloons, would allow for transmission of text messages. Initially at least, it would not be sufficient for video or images, but would nevertheless be an important move for companies like Google and Facebook, giving them a head start and allowing them to develop and improve their telecommunications technology: Google already has a strong presence in the dark fiber segment through Google Fiber, which offers high-speed connection in more and more US cities.
One thing is offering high-speed connection in wealthy areas of first world cities, and quite another is doing so in some of the poorest and remotest countries on the planet. That said; the long-term goal is to connect such countries, allowing them to join the digital and knowledge economies. Enlightened self-interest might best describe the strategy. At the same time, the traditional telecoms players will now have to rethink their role and how they are going to continue being the gatekeepers of the information society while their costly infrastructures are being replaced by their new competitors, infrastructure that may now be airborne. None of this is going to happen overnight, but this is a topic that we should keep an eye on.
(En español, aquí)
