July 6, 2005
Airplane drones to carry antennas for cell phone service?
According to The Morning Call, a California company is testing a pilotless plane that can fly 12 miles high for a week straight with an antenna to beam cell phone and Internet signals to places where they can't go now or only go intermittently.
Unmanned aerial vehicle, or UAV, are now used in Iraq and Afghanistan and can drop a bomb or transmit real-time video of insurgents to a soldier's laptop.
Large planes that can fly for a week at 65,000 feet, above commercial air traffic and weather would make for an antenna in the sky. As one plane and its antenna readies to land, a second one could take off, keeping continuous service like a satellite.
"Within two years," said Ted Wierzbanowski from plane manufacturer Aero-Vironment, "we may actually have reliable cell phone service."
However, some issues need to be resolved before UAV become common in U.S. skies: high prices, use of airspace alongside commercial planes and the public's acceptance of robot planes that could take away human jobs and powers.
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