Facebook's Internet beaming jumbo jet-sized drones coming by 2018: report

It is believed that Facebook plans to start testing its internet-carrying **solar-powered drones in 2015** , with the ultimate aim of getting two-thirds of the global population online. Earlier this in Match, Zuckerberg has unveiled the Facebook’s Connectivity Lab and its partnership with the Internet.org project. Now, a new report by DailyMail reveals Facebook’s engineering director has announced at a Summit in New York that the vehicles will be closer in size to jumbo jets and soar at 65,000ft (19,800 metres). “It could then be just three to five years until the super-sized, solar-powered drones are hovering above remote parts of the world to provide internet access,” adds the report. So, we can roughly expect these drones to hover over remote areas by 2018. In line with earlier reports, it also claims that Facebook will begin testing the drones next year. This testing will take place in an unspecified location above the US. The Internet beaming planes/drones are said to be ‘roughly the size’ of a Boeing 747. Obviously, they will be much lighter than the aeroplane that weighs around 600,000lbs (272,155kg) sans passengers or fuel. These drones are likely to be relatively cheaper and only for those areas where Internet connectivity is a problem. For instance, areas that don’t have cables or infrastructure to carry internet or telephone signals. The drones are designed to broadcast powerful signal that covers a city-sized area with a medium population density, according to Internet.org. As a part of the Internet.org initiative, Facebook has teamed up with companies like Nokia, Qualcomm, Samsung and others to build these planes. The members of the initiative revealed in a report that connecting the world is ‘one of the fundamental challenges of our time’ and the plan is to do it using various technologies, including drones.  The aim of expanding Internet is not just to stay in touch with dear ones, but to create job opportunities, provide information and tools for businesses, education, financial services and so on, further adds the report. A team at the Facebook Connectivity Lab is specifically working on policy, advising the technology and development teams on regulations that are in place. Right now, there’s a ‘one pilot per plane’ rule, but Facebook Connectivity Lab’s Yael Maguiree has said they need a regulatory environment that’s open to one pilot managing up to 100 of these solar-powered planes. With inputs from PTI