{"id":21361,"date":"2016-01-30T06:47:46","date_gmt":"2016-01-30T14:47:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2016\/01\/googles-project-skybender-aims-to-beam-5g-internet-from-solar-powered-drones"},"modified":"2017-06-04T11:02:04","modified_gmt":"2017-06-04T18:02:04","slug":"googles-project-skybender-aims-to-beam-5g-internet-from-solar-powered-drones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2016\/01\/googles-project-skybender-aims-to-beam-5g-internet-from-solar-powered-drones","title":{"rendered":"Google\u2019s Project SkyBender aims to beam 5G internet from solar-powered drones"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/googles-project-skybender-aims-to-beam-5g-internet-from-solar-powered-drones.jpeg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Google is working in secret at a spaceport in New Mexico to build and test solar-powered internet drones in a new initiative codenamed Project SkyBender, according to a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/2016\/jan\/29\/project-skybender-google-drone-tests-internet-spaceport-virgin-galactic?CMP=twt_a-technology_b-gdntech\">report from <i>The Guardian <\/i>today<\/a>. The company is reportedly renting 15,000 square feet of hangar space from Virgin Galactic \u2014 the commercial spaceflight outfit of business mogul Richard Branson \u2014 at the privately owned <a href=\"http:\/\/spaceportamerica.com\/\">Spaceport America<\/a> located near a town called Truth or Consequences. The lynchpin of Project SkyBender appears to be cutting-edge millimeter wave technology, which can transmit gigabits of data every second at speeds up to 40 times faster than modern 4G LTE.<\/p>\n<p>Millimeter waves are thought to be the future of high-speed data transmission technology, and may form the backbone of 5G mobile networks. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2016\/1\/27\/10841600\/starry-wireless-gigabit-internet-project-from-aereo-founder\">Aereo founder Chet Kanojia\u2019s new startup Starry<\/a> announced earlier this week it would use millimeter wave tech to bring gigabit internet speeds to people\u2019s homes via Wi-Fi. Millimeter waves have much shorter range than current smartphone signals and are easily disrupted by weather conditions like rain, fog, and snow. Using what\u2019s called a phased array, however, Google and others could <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2016\/1\/29\/10868232\/starry-high-speed-internet-millimeter-wave\">potentially focus the transmissions over greater distances<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Google is currently testing the technique with a new solar-powered drone called Centaur and other units made by a division known as Google Titan, which the company formed after it <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2014\/4\/14\/5613840\/google-not-facebook-buys-drone-company-titan-aerospace\">acquired drone maker Titan Aerospace in 2014<\/a>. The company has a deal with the FCC to continue testing until July, according to <i>The Guardian.<\/i> It\u2019s also paying Virgin Galactic about $1,000 a day to use its hanger, as well as an additional $300,000 to Spaceport America to construct installations with servers, millimeter wave transceivers, and other tech onsite.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2016\/1\/29\/10873676\/google-project-skybender-drones-5g-internet\" target=\"_blank\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Google is working in secret at a spaceport in New Mexico to build and test solar-powered internet drones in a new initiative codenamed Project SkyBender, according to a report from The Guardian today. The company is reportedly renting 15,000 square feet of hangar space from Virgin Galactic \u2014 the commercial spaceflight outfit of business mogul [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":367,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43,1488,15,418,1512,1633,8,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","category-drones","category-habitats","category-internet","category-mobile-phones","category-solar-power","category-space","category-sustainability"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/367"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21361"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21361\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63081,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21361\/revisions\/63081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}