03/30/2015
Facebook Building Plane-Sized Drones For Global Internet
Facebook is planning to build large solar-powered drones to fly months at a time at altitudes of 60,000 to 90,000 feet in the air and beam down backbone Internet access to users on the ground. Company officials said the drones would be cheaper than building mobile networks on the ground to help supply connections to an estimated 1.1 to 2.8 billion people who are living without Internet access.
■Class discussion: Do you think Facebook's plan could work? Why or why not? Governments and corporations are launching and planing to launch thousands of unmanned aircraft. Are you comfortable with all the drones flying over your head? Are they any more likely to crash than regular manned aircraft? What about increasing traffic congestion in the sky? How will that traffic be controlled?