Facebook will use drones, satellites and lasers...

Facebook will use drones, satellites and lasers “to deliver the internet to everyone,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Thursday in a Facebook post (http://on.fb.me/1mx6hQy). The initiative is part of the Internet.org partnership, which Facebook, Ericsson, MediaTek, Nokia, Opera, Qualcomm and Samsung jointly launched in August (CD Aug 22 p13). The group’s stated goal is to bring Internet access to 5 billion people. Thursday, Facebook elaborated in a post on Internet.org (http://bit.ly/1hBEJCn). “For suburban areas in limited geographical regions, we've been working on solar-powered high altitude, long endurance aircraft that can stay aloft for months, be quickly deployed and deliver reliable internet connections,” Facebook said. “For lower density areas, low-Earth orbit and geosynchronous satellites can beam internet access to the ground.” But for all systems, the lab is looking into free-space optical (FSO) communication, which “is a way of using light to transmit data through space using invisible, infrared laser beams,” Facebook said. “FSO is a promising technology that potentially allows us to dramatically boost the speed of internet connections provided by satellites and drones.” Michael Toscano, CEO of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, an unmanned aircraft industry group, said “the increased attention our industry is receiving demonstrates the wide range of applications of [unmanned aircraft systems] technology."