Jay Parikh on why Facebook is beaming the Internet from the sky
Facebook's Connectivity Lab is building high-altitude aircraft and new laser technology.
MENLO PARK, Calif. — We know the Internet can make lives better.
When people can get online, they can connect with their friends and loved ones. They get access to valuable resources for education, health and jobs. And we know that the Internet is one of the most powerful economic enablers of our time.
Research shows that for every 10 people who get access to the Internet, one person is lifted out of poverty. If everyone in the world could connect to the internet, we could improve the lives of hundreds of millions of people.
Unfortunately, Internet adoption rates aren't just slower than they should be — they're declining. According to a 2015 ITU report, Internet adoption rates are dropping at an alarming rate in developing countries. In 2009-10, the adoption rate was 21%. In 2014-15, it's estimated to be 8.9%.
To change this, we launched Internet.org. We believe everyone in the world deserves access to the same opportunities online that all of us take for granted. As leaders in technology, we believe we have a responsibility to offer solutions here.
Today, more than 4 billion people are not connected, and that's due to a variety of barriers. Some people aren't connected because it's not financially possible. Phones and data plans cost more than they can afford to pay. Some aren't online because they don't have enough experience with it to see why it would be relevant in their lives; why would they pay for data? And some — 10% of the world's population, in fact — aren't connected because they live in remote locations that have no internet infrastructure at all. They don't have Internet infrastructure for one major reason: Current connectivity technologies cost too much.
It's not in operators' financial interest to build the infrastructure needed in remote areas with low population densities. We created Facebook's Connectivity Lab to help solve this problem. We want to accelerate the state of technology to connect people in a way that will make clear financial sense to the Internet operators. That way, the people living in areas with low population densities can be served.
For the last year and a half, the engineers and scientists in our Connectivity Lab have been pursuing radical new connectivity technologies designed to be an order of magnitude less expensive than current models.
Some of these solutions take out the cost of ground infrastructure by looking to the sky. In our vision, we'll use high-altitude aircraft, laser communications systems and satellites as building blocks. When used together, these technologies can deliver Internet connectivity that is more efficient and cost-effective than anything being used today.
This week we announced two major milestones in this effort. The first is this: Meet Aquila.
This is our first full-scale prototype of our high-altitude, long-endurance aircraft. When launched, it's designed to fly at 60,000 feet — above commercial airlines and the weather — circling a 50-mile radius for 90 days at a time, beaming connectivity to the region below. It has the wingspan of a Boeing 737 airplane but weighs a third as much as a Toyota Prius. The specially designed monocoque wing is made from cured carbon fiber that's stronger than steel. To fly in the thin air up that high, Aquila uses a high aspect ratio wing with an undercambered airfoil to optimize its lift-to-drag ratio.
The majority of the wingspan is covered in solar cells to power the batteries for motors, avionics and payload. The solar panels will absorb enough energy from the sun during the day so that at night we'll have enough power stored for continuous flying and avionics. To save energy, Aquila will rise and descend between 60,000 feet and 90,000 feet during a 24-hour daytime and nighttime cycle.
Aquila, Latin for "eagle," was designed and constructed by our aerospace team in the U.K., and the prototype is now complete and should begin flight tests later this year.
Our second milestone is in the development of a more efficient backhaul via free space optics (FSO).
Free space optical (FSO) technology is fiber optics without the fiber, using light to wirelessly transmit data. Our optics team has designed and lab-tested optical transceivers that improve upon the state-of-the-art by 10 times, capable of transmuting tens of billions of bits per second. This will help us in our connectivity goals because this FSO technology can be used in coordination with all of the connectivity solutions we're pursuing.
Lasers can connect from a base station to a high-altitude aircraft and to a satellite. In other words, it will work in space. It can also connect our aircraft with each other in a feat of precision work. As an example, imagine holding a laser pointer in your hand and trying to hit a target the size of a dime 11 miles away. That's essentially what we're trying to do here. To make that work, we've developed a heat-tracking system so the lasers maintain their connections while the planes are airborne.
When I tell people about the rapid progress we've made in this work — an innovative new aircraft and a state-of-the-art laser communications system in 14 months — I sometimes get confused looks. Facebook? Building drones and lasers?
The reality is that we're well positioned to do this. Over the last decade we've developed industry-leading expertise in building high-efficiency global networks and infrastructure. We've demonstrated time and again that we're not afraid of placing big bets or trying unconventional approaches. And we have experience, with the Open Compute Project, in being the catalyst for more openness and more industry collaboration in the development of exciting new infrastructure technologies. You can expect us to do all that and more in with the Connectivity Lab.
The other question I sometimes get is, why? Why would Facebook want to build these things? We don't want to build mobile networks and then operate them ourselves. Instead, we want to quickly advance the state of these technologies to the point that they become viable solutions for operators and other partners to deploy. We want to work openly and collaboratively to deliver connectivity and all the social, economic, and educational opportunities it can bring, to anyone on the planet who chooses it. And we want to do it as quickly as possible.
Today, the internet is creating value for billions of people around the world. But for billions more, the internet has yet to arrive. We believe everyone in the world deserves access to the same opportunities online that we all take for granted, and this is one more step towards the day when everyone in the world can connect. And that day can't come soon enough.
Jay Parikh is vice president of global engineering and infrastructure at Facebook.