Google and Facebook are launching initiatives to connect the world to the Internet, but seemingly limitless budgets won't free the projects of turbulence, according to an engineering head at the new Facebook Connectivity Lab.
Google wants to commission a flotilla of Wi-Fi-bearing balloons on stratospheric winds, floating by inhabited regions of the world to deliver stable Internet access. Facebook wants to deliver Internet service via drones, a term avoided by Yael Maguire, engineering director at Facebook Connectivity Lab.
At the Social Good Summit in New York, Maguire divulged details on the Connectivity Lab's efforts to extend Internet access across the globe through Facebook's Internet.org initiative. Connectivity Lab will have to push the boundaries of solar, battery, and composite technology to do that, says Maguire.
"We're hoping we'll be able make this technology open for other people to use...because we think they have a more scalable model for getting the technology out there," Maguire says. "It's going to be an enormous effort. Trying to connect everyone is the problem of our generation."
The drones are said to be about the size of a 747, though significantly lighter. Maguire says the drones will have to soar above the world's dedicated air spaces and they may have to stay in the air for years. Optimistically, he says they may be ready to provide Internet access in flight within five years and ready for test flights next year.
"In order for us to fly these planes -- unmanned planes that have to fly for months, or perhaps years at a time -- we actually have to fly above the weather, above all airspace," Maguire says. "That's between 60,000 and 90,000 feet. Routinely, planes don't fly there, and certainly not drones."
Maguire compares controlling the drones to playing a video game for weeks on end, without rest. Connectivity Lab's Internet expansion initiative will also need the support of a stable regulatory environment, adding to the list of challenges the project faces, according to Maguire.
"We're taking on a whole bunch of technical risk, but we're also taking on whole bunch of regulatory risk, because there are no rules about flying planes outside of 60,000 feet and above. There are no rules about beaming signals down to people in those environments," says Maguire.
Facebook's Connectivity Lab was announced in March. The lab is staffed with experts from Ascenta, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA's Ames Research Center, and the National Optical Astronomy Observatory, says Facebook.
