One of Titan Aerospace’s drones, the Solara 50, which has a wingspan of 164 feet, slightly larger than a Boeing 767.
 
Titan Aerospace


The battle to bring the Internet to remote parts of the world will be fought in the sky.
FacebookFB +2.06% plans to buy Titan Aerospace, a New Mexico-based maker of solar-powered drones, for $60 million, CNBC is reporting. Titan’s drones reportedly canremain in flight 12 miles high for up to five years, offering a potential solution for beaming broadband to areas that don’t have it.

A Facebook spokesman declined to comment on what he termed “rumors and speculation.” A Titan spokesman didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. The deal was first reported by TechCrunch.
A deal could further Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg‘s ambition to connect more of the world. Last year, Zuckerberg and Facebook launched Internet.org, a partnership with tech companies including QualcommQCOM +3.37% and Samsung, that aims to deliver Internet access to two-thirds of the world’s population that doesn’t already have it. The deal for Titan would represent one of the first concrete steps taken by the partnership to achieve its goal.
GoogleGOOG +1.02% has its own plan to beam Internet from high up in the earth’s atmosphere, using balloons that would float in the stratosphere. The balloons are part ofProject Loon, which is being developed by Google’s skunkworks lab, Google X. Google also has another initiative, Project Link, building fiber optic networks to help local Internet service providers deliver faster connection speeds. The first test of the Project was launched in Kampala, Uganda.
Meanwhile, Amazon has expressed its own interest in drones, for delivering packages instead of broadband. Announced in December, Amazon Prime Air would use small flying robots to deliver packages within 30 minutes.
Titan is developing two dragonfly-shaped drones, both of which use batteries charged by wing-mounted solar panels to remain aloft at night. The smaller model, called the Solara 50, has a wingspan of 164 feet, slightly larger than a Boeing 767.
On its website, Titan claims that its drones can help deliver Internet speeds of up to 1 gigabyte per second using specialty communications equipment. That would be significantly faster than broadband speeds available in most developed countries.
The company says it expects “initial commercial operations” in 2015.
As the developing world goes online, Google and Facebook are battling to be the first point of contact. The search giant has its Android mobile operating system, which last year captured 79% worldwide market share of smartphones shipped, according to Strategy Analytics.
Facebook hopes to boost its user base in poorer countries with two projects, including a version of its service tuned for cheap, feature phones called “Facebook for Every Phone.” Another product, Facebook Zero, was launched in 2010 and is a stripped down mobile website launched in concert with mobile operators who don’t charge data fees when the service is used.
Facebook’s recent announcement that it plans to buy WhatsApp for $19 billion also gives it a new weapon to attract users in the developing world. The WhatsApp messaging app is particularly popular in countries like India where telecom carriers still routinely charge for standard text messages.

source: www.blogs.wsj.com