"small towers and dishes" ? Will the plane be stationary?
Mark Jordan
On 05-Aug-16 17:28, Stephen A. Lawrence wrote:
Thanks -- that makes sense.
On 08/05/2016 02:26 PM, Jed Rothwell wrote:
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
