Internet Broadband Through High-altitude Drones

mwagner writes: Skynet is coming. But not like in the movie: The future of communications is high-altitude solar-powered drones, flying 13 miles above the ground, running microwave wireless equipment, delivering broadband to the whole planet. The articles predicts this technology will replace satellites, fiber, and copper, and fundamentally change the broadband industry. The author predicts a timescale of roughly 20 years — the same amount of time between Arthur C. Clarke predicting geosynchronous satellites and their reality as a commercial business. "Several important technology milestones need to be reached along the way. The drones that will make up Skynet have a lot more in common with satellites than the flippy-flappy helicopter drone thingies that the popular press is fixated on right now. They're really effing BIG, for one thing. And, like satellites, they go up, and stay up, pretty much indefinitely. For that to happen, we need two things: lighter, higher-capacity wireless gear; and reliable, hyper-efficient solar tech."

Comments

Re:I'm betting on balloons

[quenda]

For 98% of the population, towers as used currently make even more sense.
Ground-based cellular systems can pack close together in cities, and spread out in the suburbs and rural areas.
These drones are stuck at high altitude, so except for remote areas they are wasting bandwidth and battery life on the ground.
Drones might be useful for extra large LTE cells in northern Canada or central Australia. Perhaps replace Iridium.

Must be a slow news for nerds day.