There are now rumours circulating that Facebook is looking to purchase the aerospace company Titan Aerospace only weeks after Facebook splashed out on purchasing Whatsapp. The plan, of the rumours are to believed, are that Facebook will be hoping to use the aerospace company to connect the people of Africa to the internet. This would be achieved by launching a large number of drones to initially fly above Africa and then also above other regions without internet connection.
It is widely accepted that Africa is a significant market with lots of room for development. It is also widely viewed that the economies of the future will be knowledge economies where internet connections will be highly valuable. By tapping into this large market Facebook would most likely be hoping that a significant number of those to be connected will decide to use its online services. The technology is hoping to be significantly cheaper than using satellites and a lot simpler to achieve now that high endurance solar powered aircraft have been developed.
Drones of this nature could also have a whole host of other uses, such as weather and climate monitoring as well as spying and other communication system. Therefore Facebook could use this as a product it could sell to many other clients in different markets across the world, resulting in Facebook becoming more of a conglomerate rather than just a simple internet company.
However the scheme would be in competition with Google's Project Loon which is set to use a series of balloons that circulate the globe to provide internet access to the world below. Google have been testing and refining the technology in New Zealand since June last year with the aim of rolling the system out as soon as possible. As testing is on the way for Project Loon, it could easily be argued that Google is ahead and at an advantage.
Drones of this nature could also have a whole host of other uses, such as weather and climate monitoring as well as spying and other communication system. Therefore Facebook could use this as a product it could sell to many other clients in different markets across the world, resulting in Facebook becoming more of a conglomerate rather than just a simple internet company.
However the scheme would be in competition with Google's Project Loon which is set to use a series of balloons that circulate the globe to provide internet access to the world below. Google have been testing and refining the technology in New Zealand since June last year with the aim of rolling the system out as soon as possible. As testing is on the way for Project Loon, it could easily be argued that Google is ahead and at an advantage.
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