project_skybender

According to a report published in one of the world's most renowned newspaper daily, Google, the tech giant, is currently on a secret mission to build and test solar-powered internet drones at a spaceport in New Mexico under a new initiative codenamed Project SkyBender.

The tech rumour mill industry is also bubbling with the rumour that the company is renting out 15,000 square feet of hangar space from Virgin Galactic — business mogul Richard Branson's commercial spaceflight outfit -- at the privately owned Spaceport America located near a town called Consequences or Truth for the initiative.

Project SkyBender is part of the little-known Google Access team, which also includes Project Loon, a plan to deliver wireless internet using unpowered balloons floating through the stratosphere.

A similar sloar-powered Internet drone called 'Aquila' internet drone was demonstrated by Facebook in August last year.

According to reports, the USP of project skybender undertaken by Google, is its cutting-edge millimeter wave technology that has the potential to transmit gigabits of data every second at a speed that is 40 times faster than the modern 4G LTE. Interesting, isn't it?

Millimeter wave technology is being considered as the future of high-speed data transmission technology, so much so that it is being anticipated to become a backbone of 5G mobile networks. Millimeter waves are known to have a much shorter range than the signals of smartphones currently in use. Further, they are also known to get easily disrupted by weather conditions. However, Google and its other counterparts will be able to focus the transmissions to greater distances by making use of a phased array.

Currently, the tech giant is in the midst of testing the technique with the help of a new solar-powered drone called Centaur and other units made by a special division of Google known as Google Titan. The division was formed by Google after it had acquired drone maker Titan Aerospace in the year 2014. According to the report in the national daily, the company would continue testing until July this year in accordance to its deal with the FCC. In addition to all this, Google is footing a bill of $1,000 a day paying Virgin Galactic about 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.

Google has passionately in the past discussed about its plans to bring internet access to developing countries. Reportedly, SkyBender is part of Google Access, a division that also houses Project Loon, one of Google's much ambitious air balloon Wi-Fi project aimed at a similar mission of bringing Internet access to the remotest of the remote parts of the world.
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