Google plans to beam 5G internet from solar drones

[Dobbsjr]

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2016/01/30/google-project-skybender/

Quote

It's called Project Skybender, and it aims to deliver 5G internet from solar drones. Mountain View has reportedly begun experimenting with millimeter wave-based internet in Virgin Galactic's Gateway to Space terminal at Spaceport America in New Mexico. Millimeter waves are believed to be capable of transmitting data 40 times faster than LTE and could become the technology behind 5G internet. DARPA began working on an internet connection based on it for remote military bases in 2012.

Faster than LTE? Sign me up! Goodbye cell providers, hello free internet! 

[DocSwag]

If this is true then my 5G would be faster than my wifi lol. I guess getting rid of wifi and only using hotspot in the house?

[Sidiox]

2 minutes ago, DocSwag said:

If this is true then my 5G would be faster than my wifi lol. I guess getting rid of wifi and only using hotspot in the house?

Latency won't be too amazing tho. 

[Misanthrope]

Yeah listen my carrier (AT&T) now gives me 4G. It's actually faster than most home broadband connections around here in fact (10mbps down AND up) and it's basically useless speeds with a 3GB per month data cap. We already have pretty damn good technology and nobody is actually using it to lower prices with the added efficiency and speeds.

 

[FakezZ]

5 minutes ago, Sidiox said:

Latency won't be too amazing tho. 

EXACTLY this! The only thing that will probably kill it is the latency :/ But we should wait and see. You never know what Google might have up their sleeves :P

[Master Disaster]

2 hours ago, FakezZ said:

EXACTLY this! The only thing that will probably kill it is the latency :/ But we should wait and see. You never know what Google might have up their sleeves :P

Nah, if the latency is high from my phone to a satellite to Google then going from my phone to a drone to a satellite to google cannot possibly be any better.

Remember, latency is a measure of time.

[Mr.Meerkat]

Latency will be the ultimate killer here...the lowest ping I've got with 3/4g is 35ms and that's standing basically right next to a mast for my carrier...and now, up to a drone then a satellite then back down again=incredibly high unusable internet (at lease for me)...1GB/s up and down speeds anyone with the only catch of 150ms of ping/latency? 

[Mathematical]

2 hours ago, Dobbsjr said:

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2016/01/30/google-project-skybender/

Faster than LTE? Sign me up! Goodbye cell providers, hello free internet! 

 

5G is a standard so every telecommunication company will have the same. It will not be released for a few years at the soonest, so there is still research being done on the most efficient methods to utilize. One technology 5G will utilize is Massive MIMO. In addition to being significantly faster it will utilize less energy at both the base station and the mobile station. The only interesting aspect of this article is the fact that they are using drones, so the cells would be constantly changing at possibly different rates. I wonder how they solved the problem of pilot contamination.

[Doobeedoo]

Will be awesome when it comes, I've read about it and speeds and latency getting a huge boost.
Though, I'm here hoping for fiber to expand and specially pricing to get cheaper for somewhat faster speeds aside from entry one.

[FakezZ]

4 hours ago, Master Disaster said:

Nah, if the latency is high from my phone to a satellite to Google then going from my phone to a drone to a satellite to google cannot possibly be any better.

Remember, latency is a measure of time.

Yeah that's exactly what I said. You probably misunderstood my post :P

[as96]

Sounds a bit fake but if that's true and it's not gonna be limited to the US like Google Fiber I'm definitely gonna pay for the service, the 4G I have on my phone is a lot more fast than my home connection since in some places I got 44Mbps while with my home connection I get 6mbps which is awful, if only 4G didn't have a data cap :(

I hope this thing it's true.

[-BirdiE-]

10 hours ago, Master Disaster said:

Nah, if the latency is high from my phone to a satellite to Google then going from my phone to a drone to a satellite to google cannot possibly be any better.

Remember, latency is a measure of time.

Right now it doesn't go directly from your phone to a satellite. It goes from your phone, to a cell tower, to a satellite.

[-BirdiE-]

I think the big benefit to this, other than the increased speeds, is the cheaper infrastructure. Not only is it easier to build and launch a drone than it is to build a cell tower, but it's also an insane amount easier to re-position them and change/improve coverage.

[themctipers]

C:

[Mathematical]

41 minutes ago, -BirdiE- said:

I think the big benefit to this, other than the increased speeds, is the cheaper infrastructure. Not only is it easier to build and launch a drone than it is to build a cell tower, but it's also an insane amount easier to re-position them and change/improve coverage.

5G will be implemented on all wireless carriers eventually, Google isn't inventing 5G it is an industry standard that is being worked on by many researchers at the moment all over the world. The hardware for 5G will be cheaper than for 4G and not all things need to be changed, so an entire revamp for cell tower is not required. When you change the cells, you introduce more variability in pilot contamination, which is the biggest dilemma in Massive MIMO, which is the core technology that 5G is built upon. The only benefit I see is that it would allow better SNR in areas of very poor terrain or urban environments with lots of obstructions, due to all the multipath fading along other issue that would occur since even with more antennas in 5G with a cell tower the signal would be degraded significantly. Also this could provide coverage during the recovery stages of a big natural disasters.

[Admiral Naismith]

Maybe they figured out how the U.S. military does it? Our drones have ridiculously low latency. This is required for doing manual flying and shooting (the rare times that happens these days).

As far as I know no one has figured it out. Maybe google with all their googliness has.

[Lethal Seraph]

Well this is interesting... hopefully other ISP would show interest in competing than just blocking or setting territories. Seriously, Frontier  communication go screw themselves, I live 2miles outside of a small town, 25miles off a huge US military base and I couldn't get more than 3/1 Internet speed.

[Trixanity]

Well, one of the goals of 5G is to decrease the latency (as far as I know). While speed is obviously always great to increase, it seems like 5G will work on a lot of other things beside speed.

I'm not sure how Google's approach will affect the final 5G standard.

[alextulu]

On 2/1/2016 at 4:11 AM, -BirdiE- said:

Right now it doesn't go directly from your phone to a satellite. It goes from your phone, to a cell tower, to a satellite.

Actually, cellular networks don't use satellites, they use undersea cables instead.

 

Telecom satellites are only used for satellite phones (because they're designed for remote locations where cellular networks don't exist) and TV (because latency doesn't matter on TV).

 

If cellular networks used satellites, there would be noticeable delays during phone calls.

[MeDownYou]

>.> i has dial-up speed sign me up.