Facebook wants to buy unmanned aerial vehicles to launch tens of thousands of internet-free areas

Reading] Facebook hopes to address the issue of sending broadband signals to underdeveloped regions. Facebook, which has just bought WhatsApp 19 billion dollars, is plotting a new acquisition, targeting an unmanned aircraft company. On March 4, the Wall Street Journal quoted people familiar with the story as saying Facebook could spend $60 million to buy Titan Aerospace, the US solar drone manufacturer, to address the problem of sending broadband signals to underdeveloped regions. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's chief executive, has been touting the idea of getting more local connectivity and has launched a Internet.org program with companies such as Samsung and Nokia last year to spread the Internet to areas not yet connected to the Internet. The drones, which can send broadband signals, are clearly making Zuckerberg's ideas faster. The Titan, founded in 2012, the development of two dragonfly-shaped UAV, using solar cells, can be 20 kilometers away from the Earth's surface space uninterrupted flight for 5 years, through their own communications, surveying, atmospheric sensors and other equipment, play the equivalent of atmospheric satellite functions, with wide application. Compared with the satellite, the advantage of this UAV is that the cost and launch costs are lower, the launch window period is large, easy to recover and maintain and update the load. The Titan says drones can use special communications equipment to provide 1G of speed per second and are expected to start commercial operations early in 2015. It is understood that Facebook intends to launch more than 11,000 drones into areas that are not covered by the Internet, starting with Africa first. The only question is, why did the Titan, who was only 1 years old, rush to sell? The US technology website TechCruch said the sale was due to the fact that some Titan investors believed the company was in the right direction, but the Titan was in the early stages of the process and it was difficult to recover costs in the short term. In addition, some investors are worried about the upcoming U.S. federal Space Agency regulations, which is expected to be enacted in 2015 to include drones in the regulatory system.