Communications costs are already an order of magnitude lower than those in the USA in many countries of the world, without any strange new technology. The cost of modern cellular communications in high priced nations is proven to be purely a factor of capitalist greed, it has nothing to do with the cost to provide the service.
From: Jed Rothwell [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Friday, August 5, 2016 11:26 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Vo]:Facebook solar airplane Ah, here we are: "With Aquila, we've designed a new aircraft architecture, one that can support staying in the air for months at a time. Aquila is solar powered, and when launched, it will create a 50-km communications radius for up to 90 days, beaming a signal down to the people in that area. This signal will be received by small towers and dishes that will then convert it into a Wi-Fi or LTE network that people can connect to with their cellphones and smartphones." https://code.facebook.com/posts/993520160679028/building-communications-networks-in-the-stratosphere/ In other words, the airplane replaces the infrastructure between towers, and it also allows for smaller towers. Probably cheaper ones too. It says they want to reduce communication costs by an order of magnitude. - Jed
