What's your point, Russ?
Stringing fibre costs a bunch. This is supposed to reach areas where
that hasn't been done and where the funds to do it don't exist. As
such, it solves a real problem which really exists; it's not just some
conspiracy dreamed up by the capitalists.
The alternative is satellite networks. Planes like this may not be
cheap to develop and deploy but satellites are even more not cheap.
On 08/05/2016 04:21 PM, Russ George wrote:
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
