Four billion people on the earth have no internet access. That will change if Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s solar powered drone plan works.
A previous trial of his drone ended with a crash landing, but a May 2017 Test of the Aquila Drone was a huge success.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s long-term plan for the drone, called Aquila, is to have it and others provide internet access to 4bn people around the world who are currently in the dark.
“When Aquila is ready, it will be a fleet of solar-powered planes that will beam internet connectivity across the world,” he wrote on Facebook.
The drone flew with more sensors, new spoilers and a horizontal propeller stopping system to help it better land after the crash in December. It was in the air for an hour and 46 minutes and reached 3,000ft.
The drone weighs about 1,000lbs and has a longer wingspan than a Boeing 747. It runs mostly on autopilot but there are manned ground crews to manage certain maneuvers.
Aquila Drone Video
If this is a success, and I expect it to be, it will not only bring free or extremely cheap internet access to the world, but also free or extremely cheap phone service.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
Good. Maybe I can get some internet service here in WV, instead of that awful and expensive Frontier communications
Why would anyone go out of their way to offer you service for less money? Most likely it will be like sat service — more expensive for a very slow connection. Because rural areas have no choice.
The 3 billion people referenced have no computers, no/basic phones and no money. Facebook will just go broke and die faster. An easily copied business that relies on click fraud to stay alive.
It’s expensive to compete with satellite providers. In dronespace, things are moving forward fast enough that whatever Zuck, with his billions, can do next year; cheap Chinese clones can do better, 3 years later.
Google tried something similar, only using balloons, about a decade ago. Never really seemed to work that well in the real world. Nothing in hype-space ever really does.
But worldwide availability of sufficient speed and reliability for everyone to have access to at least text based, asynchronous protocols (email, blogs, non excessive websites and, crucially, crypto currency transfers if the protocols are done right. The important stuff, IOW) won’t remain a hurdle for too long.
I, too, have only Frontier as a choice, but at least I have DSL service through them. My brother across town is unlucky enough to be in a 2 mile gap on his county highway where no broadband is available and must live with satellite service (no video).
Reblogged this on World4Justice : NOW! Lobby Forum..
Three billion people make less than $2/day….Great customers for Amazon?
I’m sure they will be extended credit, same as the rest of us. The end of credit is the end of the WORLD.
Three billion people happy to work for $2.01 a day. Who can sell their output on Amazon….. Or perhaps bypass Amazon altogether…..
There are plenty of places in the world, where a human’s work is valued above $2 bucks. Meaning, as soon as these guys are reliably connected, they won’t be making < $2 for long.
Not really the day to be reading stories like this after spending 2hrs trying to create a backup of a 100kb html bookmark file from a mobile browser without using PC. Chrome finally downloaded one after syncing to online, but Opera does not and only shares current page. Export bookmarks, this was standard at one point, minute program needed for most people without root access. But then it isn’t about the end user, it is about market domination and herding users into one basket… a bit like that surreal idea outlined above. For any population centre you place repeaters… can’t guard the hardware then send in the drones and claim the airspace… they resemble their backup of B52s just so no one gets any ideas.
Seriously, they have to be in transmitter distance, are they just going to act as relays from a few urban transmission centres? Because you aren’t going to have one hovering every 50 miles so Ahmed can get clear reception on his junked JellyBean. It is one of the most rediculous ideas, for urban connection you have satellite receivers which will cost less, long range transmitters, wtf is the idea apart from creating demand at the periphery of current access and waltzing around like a progressive prick who needs a market to spew on.
Bravo! Bravo!
Once again, the free market triumphs. There is no way we could have innovative solutions to big problems from big government.
The Manhattan projet? Sputnik?
Let’s see how the free market solves climate change without “big government.”
the first of which was necessary to stop the problem of a government trying to take over the world.
The second – part of a cold-war caused by a battle over which of two ginormous governments were more ginormous.
My bet is we would have no shortage of satellites w/o gov’t involvement and that Nuclear would today be a more acceptable synonym for cheap energy instead of associated with turning people into shadows.
My internet landline costs $2.50/month and includes continental USA long distance. How much cheaper do you need? The best part is I paid five years in advance so I receive no monthly bills.
Australia is being ripped off by almost every service provider and is wide open to this type of innovation. Most here pay between $70 to over $100 for internet and home phone services and almost as much for mobiles (well half 🙂
Drones won’t be providing landline like bandwidths and latencies until long past Zuck’s death. This stuff is for places where there is currently NO access. Not for lowering bills for those already well served.
Many/most places in the US suffers the same issue you do downunder. Inevitably so, given strictly enforced impediments to competition leaving many providers with darned near monopolies.
The way to solve your problem, is to let anyone place a pole anywhere, anytime. Then let those anyone’s rent pole space to anyone, anywhere who wants to hang a cable.
But that would of course be a free market. Not one manipulated for the exclusive benefit of the well connected.
Agree
Have used Skype for years for outgoing calls to any phone in the USA/Canada (not just Skype users). $8.52/3 months. Works fine from my PC + cellphone.
Here in the UK, I get unlimited Broadband Internet and unlimited UK phone calls for £25 pm.
Phone… Service? You mean, like, fax machines?
I think they’ll just want internet, so they can Skype and WeChat like normal people.
Damn! I KNEW is was missing SOMETHING!
Synchronous communication is the domain of Luddites, snake oil salesmen and wasters of others’ time.
A swarm of sometimes flying, sometimes not, sometimes crashing, sometimes disturbed by weather – internet relaying drones connecting half of humanity, will drive home the need to focus on the asynchronous protocols that made the internet useful in the first place.
4,000,000,000 people will soon have access to Internet porn
Given that these guys supposedly make < $2/day, I suspect you got that a bit backwards…….
Colour me a skeptic, but how many of such units are you going to need at an alititude of 3000ft?
I think clusters of microsatellites holds more promise than this internet by balloon or solar plane.
Then there is the issue of priorities, what a lot of these people need is not time wasting facebook, but clean water, food and decent shelter..
Priorities +1000
It says a lot about how out of touch with humanity the Silicon Valley crowd is that they think poor people need faceplant, instead of clean water and food. How about low cost medical treatments? Or practical education instead of political indoctrination?
For the text based, asynchronous protocols that made ( and honestly still make..) the internet useful, the occasional flyby is all that is really needed. Your talking about people with much less information access than Westerners had even before the internet.
Like all things, the utility of every bit of information access, follows a diminishing return curve. Going from absolute isolation to a few emails a week; is an much, much larger gain, than from HD to 4K on some pointless Youtube video.
When steam farm tractors came into vogue, lots of laborers lost their jobs but there was new demand for mechanics and welders and fuel suppliers and so forth. Productivity for society as a whole soared.
When the first computers eliminated the need for an army of abacus pushers, new jobs were created writing code, carrying punch cards/magnetic tapes/ disks around, running wires, loading printer paper, etc. Productivity soared.
When Faceplant “grants” billions of people internet access, we will have billions of people trained in “Liking” electrons, monitoring what cats are doing, reading heavily biased news if not propaganda. It is the ultimate procrastination tool.
Even as a “social media” tool, its amazing how people are more connected and more lonely at the same time. 140 characters doesn’t let you get to know your online “friend” anymore than saying a terse “hi” to a street vendor. If you know your barrista, chances are you have had a longer conversation than “hi”. Social media doesn’t allow deep communication, its all superficial voyeurism.
The Fed can’t figure out why more and more computers / smart phones isn’t translating into higher productivity… answer: faceplant, twitter, snapchat, and other procrastination tools are displacing both productivity and social relations.
You can’t have even a moderate attention span with a 140 character limit.
Even moderation doesn’t like comments about bee fifty twos and erect progress persons projecting their fluidity on the market, even if one four one seems as fair a trade as any.
??? What?
Were you replying to some other comment?
I don’t understand what you are trying to say
I was referring to a comment of mine that you cannot read because it is ‘in moderation’.
Hopefully your comment comes out of moderation soon, we need some adult commenters.
The infantile nonsense that “realist” is scribbling is having the unintended consequence of demonstrating why education systems are failing. naive doesn’t even begin to cut it, and this guy is teaching young people?
Hey Medex. The internet is indeed the ultimate procrastination tool for some, but not for everyone. I use it as the ultimate educational tool in my classes, as do my students. Like all tools, you have to learn to use it properly, to get the most out of it.
Some people, however, spend their entire day making dozens and dozens of blog comments. I guess I can understand that, if they are disabled and can’t do anything productive.
I applaud efforts to expand internet availability to more people. When used properly, the internet is an amazing tool. I don’t use Facebook, but good for them to try to expand internet access.
You start telling people that their computers are for work and enhanced productivity and you will see the bottom fall out of the market for computers.
The vast majority of consumption is discretionary….and largely for entertainment purposes…..ie, NOT for productive purposes.
Hey UNrealist — are you really naive enough to think faceplant is spending all this money so people can access sites other than faceplant?
But then I see you referred to you and “students in your classes” — which actually says more about you than anything else you have written on this blog.
Those who can do. Those who can’t are in your profession. Go ahead and protest from your safe space UNrealist. You have to leave campus to see the real world
Nice try Medex. Teaching is not my profession (though unlike you, I admire teachers). I donate my time to a charity that helps teach people the skills they need to move ahead in today’s technological world. Many of my “students” are in their 50’s and have never used a computer or had an email address. They are happy that this charity exists to give them the skills they need to get a better job.
You see, unlike you, I actually try to help people acquire the skills that are needed in today’s world. All you do is hurl insults at people based on your ridiculous assumptions.
I recall that you have also falsely accused me of working for George Soros; and that I must live in the slums of India; and that Mish should ban me for being a left wing liar. All wrong as well.
One day, you may actually get something right about me, but I doubt it.
Charity and war are royal pursuits, though I presume some true kindness needs to be inluded to breach the distances they propose. If we assume that at any moment there are numerous choices, where one will discard the realities the others would lead to, you are suggesting a ‘free’ social setting for the unwary to enjoy will teach them what is ‘needed’ to move on in life. This is conditioning a state of exclusion and dependency. If it were truly called for it would have been arranged by those people themselves, instead of continuing with the ‘helpless miserable dead end existence’ which has served them since time immemorial. You are telling them they are not capable any more. A most peculiar form of education indeed, which to me seems closer to grooming.
The problem with “productivity,” as measured by the Fed, is that, in a fiat world, it is just another way to measure debt growth. What people do or don’t doesn’t really matter, as it’s completely overshadowed by price effects deriving from debt growth, or lack thereof.
How is this better than satellite technology to provide access?
And how many of these are needed to cover such large areas?/
Lots of unanswered issues here.
A LOT shorter delay!
The hope is that it will prove much, much cheaper, simpler and less power consuming for the endpoints, than sending satellites into space and communicating with them.
Did I see the letters CIA on a wing tip?
zuckerberg is not interested in providing free internet. It’s about controlling the content that is accessible to his internet. I hope he fails.
I hope he succeeds. It’s not about controlling content. It’s about freedom to access information from anywhere. It’s difficult to control the internet. At best, you can restrict access to the internet. This is the opposite.
So all the corporations of the world have abandoned their evil intents and are now working for the betterment of the human condition?
They are each and every one seeking world domination, and don’t you EVER forget it.
Chickens in their coup, waiting for their daily feeding. Being automated makes it all so much less threatening. They will likely never see a human face from hatchling to processing and content in the knowledge that THIS is life, THIS is NORMAL.
This clueless UNrealist person is so clueless and naive about the real world outside his classroom. He actually thinks faceplant is going to spend millions of dollars to give access to websites other than faceplant?
Its so childish and naive its hard to know where to start.
Those who can do. Those who can’t teach children because adults would laugh at them.
Nice try Medex. Teaching is not my profession (though unlike you, I admire teachers). I donate my time to a charity that helps teach people the skills they need to move ahead in today’s technological world. Many of my “students” are in their 50’s and have never used a computer or had an email address. They are happy that this charity exists to give them the skills they need to get a better job.
You see, unlike you, I actually try to help people acquire the skills that are needed in today’s world. All you do is hurl insults at people based on your ridiculous assumptions.
I recall that you have also falsely accused me of working for George Soros; and that I must live in the slums of India; and that Mish should ban me for being a left wing liar. All wrong as well.
One day, you may actually get something right about me, but I doubt it.
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=khnOo1bBtUA
Exactly what Zuckerberg does or does not want, is pretty irrelevant to someone in Mogadishu. If Zuck can connect you to Facebook, whatever technology he is using to do so, can also connect you to the wider Internet. If he doesn’t do it, someone else will.
And if he tries to stop them, just shoot his drones down. As opposed to America, Somalia is, after all, a fairly free country. With attendant de facto respect for the 2nd.
They have been attempting to do this for close to 20 years. Every company goes out of business.
Touche!!!
At least half the stunts performed by the big tech companies, have more to do with creating and reinforcing an aura of being a place, where everyone cares about whatever current college grads have been taught to care about, and where “great innovations” take place.
Millennial graduates of the top schools, have lived so sheltered their entire lives, that they literally expect they are going to get jobs on Manhattan projects out of of college. What the Googles and Facebooks out there have to do to succeed in the hiring race, is to try their best to keep these illusions alive. While in reality, 90% of whatever their hires actually work on, is maintaining boring old code left after someone else……..
bad weather would eliminate them no matter how high they can fly.
Realist,
Really you are so in tune with reality (not). Zuckerberg loves walls around his home in Hawaii but not at the border. The rich don’t love freedom only control.
Hey Mike. Everyone wants to be in control. But no-one controls the internet. You’re saying Zuckerberg controls the internet? Prove it.
Depends what PRISM you are looking through.
Everyone??
Maybe everyone with psychopathic tendencies.
Yes, everyone, even if it is just their immediate surroundings. Most are satisfied with that, but the same desire for control is in all of us.
I took the reference to freedom as related to control as meaning control of people – other people.
Way too many people think that other people are their property.
Take a look at the history of “Free basics”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Basics
India basically rejected the idea of a cheap ‘restricted’ internet to the poor provided everything goes through Facebooks filter because it violated the principle of net neutrality.
If that isn’t control, or an attempt at control I don’t know what is.
This won’t stop facebook doing a re-brand and trying again in Africa.
Wow, this might even obsolete all those low tech satellites that don’t need propellers and remain far above hurricanes and stuff. Next up, maybe bring back steam locomotives and get rid of those pesky airliners. They go too fast.
Sitting here tonight listening to our local suburb city display of fireworks, something very meaningful for me as it is the public display of burning taxpayer funds in a glorious fashion.
Just thinking of how great it would be to not have to go to work tomorrow and how this technology will allow us to not have that inevitability. With the death of retail and the automation of order fulfillment for Amazon delivering our high quality Chinese goods, we will simply need to wait patiently for our solar power drones to deliver our ready to eat meals.
The future is soylent green delivery drones.
Looks a little fragile. Not sure how well it will handle turbulence or other weather events.
You’ll have to have a FB account to use this. And if FB charges a few dollars/month for the service, then they will have your real name from the CC or bank billing! This is what Zukerberg is really looking for.
By FaceBook founder , he means Facebook thief.
It sounds great, but to be sure about it one should ask:
How many Internet connections can a single drone provide simultaneously?
How many square miles in area can one drone provide coverage for?
How much does each drone cost?
What is the lifespan of each drone?
What percent of the time can the drone be flying in the sky at “operational” altitude?
It’ll also bring another private company exclusive access to four billion people’s internet history and political profiling.
But, hey, we can trust these guys, right…?
It’ll also bring another private company exclusive access to four billion people’s internet history and political profiling.
But, hey, we can trust these guys, right…?
It will be interesting to see how raptors will take to it. I suspect it will be seen as a competitor and they will deal with it appropriately.
Here is how Australia’s raptors take care of these fragile gadgets.
Seems like a balloon would make more sense.
Looks too much like a bubble, bad press.
i don’t think using the drone for internet access will fly, but i’ll bet this could be sold to the military complex. invent something and sell it to the one who wants it, even if they aren’t the first intended user. big brother watching.
That’s great, it’ll go nicely with my Nuclear Power sources that have made electricity so cheap that we won’t even need to meter it.
So much pie in the sky. Think of it, a new round of Peace Corp volunteers to teach 4 billion individuals how to use e-mail, something which has fallen off the western cultural map in the past decade or two. Yet how many of the 4 billion have at least cell phones and what percentage have smart phones?
So how do the drones cost to operate of a 24/7/265 basis and will the host country have any say as to their operation and content carried? Or is this just another billionaires dream of new world global order? Next the 4 billion will want automatic trucking and personal driverless vehicles lest they feel left in the stone age.
These wouldn’t be allowed or needed in China. I recently returned from a visit and had excellent coverage everywhere I travelled. That’s 1.4 b right there.
India (also 1.4 b) might be a good place for these drones, though I haven’t been there for a few years and am not sure about the coverage there today. Maybe Africa? Indonesia? Northern Canada and Russia (lots of land but not many people).
Still, I applaud the attempt.
I was going to say I can think of a good place for them too, but you would probably applaud that also.
Why can’t our genius wonders ever solve a problem that actually is in need?
How about education? Crime? Infrastructure? Something that actually improves people lives!
Nope. Just a hyper-loop, colonizing Mars, and more grand plans.Always something that can’t be measured. More hype for them.
I guess this is just what we need. More people playing video games and posting stuff about themselves. 1000 friends on Facebook and no real life!
The most egregious failure is the military and warfare, which are results of government.
The 20th century was a century of technological wonders and government made misery.
As someone once commented ” In a couple of years we should be where we were a couple of years ago “.
The hype is necessary for keeping Wall Street on its toes about the valuation of your company, and for feeding your own ego as everyone oohs and ahs as you walk into a room.
So let’s look at the great American information age technology companies:
1. Google: has a way of searching the Internet and selling advertising. 20 year old technology.
2. Amazon: the Sears catalog of the 21st century. 150 year old technology with a nice user experience.
3. Apple: built a better telephone. 150 year old technology with no wires! And a few nice gizmo replacements: calculator, flashlight, maps.
4. Facebook: a website where you can talk about stuff. Mish has been doing it for years.
5. Netflix: TV off the Internet! 80 year old technology, but now you can watch stuff when you want to watch it. See DVRs.
6. Microsoft: Still has one of the best word processors. Updated a technology from the middle ages called the printing press.
7. Uber: Updated a technology called the taxi. Nobody knows when the concept of taking a person from point a to point b started. But they can do it with an app! Though Uber is revolutionary in their ability to burn through investor capital at enormous rates.
8. Tesla: after billions of dollars of expenditures, they still can’t build an affordable electric car. A 110 year old technology. See Uber.
I did learn how to do a decent job of replacing drywall from YouTube. I’ll give them that. So, sorry, there won’t be flying cars, or autonomous cars, or autonomous flying cars, or Mars colonies, or drone deliveries, or solar-powered drones providing Internet access.
Or affordable health-care.
“Why can’t our genius wonders ever solve a problem that actually is in need?”
Because they can’t and would prefer not proving to the world that they can’t.
Ask a scientist what should be done about the crippled nuclear reactors at Fukushima. It’s the only way to shut them up once they’ve begun to prattle on about climate change. They are more comfortable telling you what happened 50,000 years ago than 5 years ago or what is happening today.
“If this is a success, and I expect it to be, it will not only bring free or extremely cheap internet access to the world, but also free or extremely cheap phone service.”
Do you really believe they will offer this on the cheap? Because these people are all standing by with computers/smart phones prepurchased and are just awaiting some benevolent American corporation to bring them a connection…extremely cheap.
Don’t we already have satellite internet….Hughes Net or some such, and it is anything but cheap.
This is about stock price, selling the notion that technology, ANY technology is The Future……the very thing the stock market is selling. Amazon, Tesla, whatever, is not priced on profit but on the dream of the future….a bet. Everyone is a sucker for the next big thing….and it has nothing to do with the “thing”, but on the hype and the profits that the hype will generate.
Mish’s headline, and others like it will sell Fb stock.
It’s just that simple.