TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Mark Zuckerberg has announced that Facebook has successfully test solar-powered drones in the UK skies, as reported by Antara News.
The drones use lasers for its internet access and was designed to provide connections to rural and areas with no internet connections.
“As part of our Internet.org effort to connect the world, we’ve designed unmanned aircraft that can beam internet access down to people from the sky,” Zuckerberg said in a blog post.
“We’ve successfully completed our first test flight of these aircraft in the UK.”
It was developed by Ascenta, a Somerset-based designer of solar-powered drones bought by Facebook in March 2014.
The drones will be able to fly at altitudes of 60,000 feet for months on solar power.
It has wingspans of more than 29 meter, or larger than a Boeing 737 aircraft, but weigh less than a car.
“Aircraft like these will help connect the whole world because they can affordably serve the 10 percent of the world’s population that live in remote communities without existing internet infrastructure,” said Zuckerberg.
The drones are part of Facebook’s internet.org initiative that aims to connect billions of people to the internet, creating new markets for the social network which already connects 1.39 billion active users per month.
Facebook is ready to welcome new users by developing technology to help handle with the surge in messages and photos on its social network.
“If we achieve our first goal, get everyone on the internet, build services at scale for the entire planet, we create this new problem: so much information you can’t consume the stuff that’s important to you,” Facebook’s chief technology officer Mike Schroepfer said.
Google is also planning to provide internet access to non-connected internet areas by using high air balloons and drones. Google has purchased the American-based drone firm Titan Aerospace in April last year.
ANTARA NEWS
