Facebook working on aerial base stations for broadband connectivity

BARCELONA: Facebook is working on an aerial base station as one of the projects for increasing broadband access to users worldwide, including those in un-connected areas.

The Menlo Park, California-headquartered company said it wanted to work with operators to lower deployment cost, while using single fibre internet point to connect areas spanning hundreds of kilometers, which can be covered by a network of solar-powered internet drones.

Jay Parikh, global head of engineering and infrastructure, told reporters said that the aerial base station, also called Aquila aircraft, was ready, and was recently moved from UK facility to a testing facility in US.

"There are tens and thousands of flying hours of testing that we still have to do," Parikh said at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

The Aquila aircraft, has a wingspan roughly the size of a Boeing 737 but is about a third of the weight of a typical car. It will stay up for about 3 months, high enough to stay out of visibility. The wing span is 140 feet, and weight is 930 pound weight.

Despite having a keen interest in connecting the un-connected, Facebook executives categorically said that the company was not going to be the operator, even as they research networks.

"The focus is to testing the platform out. We are not going to be an operator, we want to bring the technology to operators to deploy in areas where it makes sense," said Parikh.

The company added that it will work with operators and existing spectrum, technology but will eventually hand over the project to carriers to use and run.

For Aquila, Facebook is working with several partners including Nokia, Intel, SK Telecom and Deutsche Telecom.

Aquila is still proprietary.