Facebook has competition from Google.
Facebook and Google are two of the biggest web presences on the planet and they both have eyes on the same progression to internet providers. So the Facebook Aquila will have some pretty opposition when it finally gets to market. Google is going a different route than the Facebook drones, however. Google is instead going to target the solar powered hot air balloon market. While that sounds at the very least like a downgrade compared to drones, it still is real competition. This is an untapped market and the Aquila will have to prove itself in order to succeed long term. Google’s hot air balloon division is called Project Loon and has the same goals as the Aquila. Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg have both been vocally skeptical about the viability of hot air balloons as a vehicle to accomplish what Google is positing as their attempt.
Aquila will bring internet to infrastructure challenged communities.
Yael Maguire is the head engineer at Facebook’s Connectivity Lab and he admits that there are a ton of challenges in the way of the Aquila. Mark Zuckerberg, however, is focused on the objective. His objective is to push available technology to their very limits in order to help provide internet to the 10% of the population that does not have easy access to it. While the majority of the Earth’s population has access to internet, there is a small percentage that lacks the infrastructure to even consider having internet in their communities. This is what Project Aquila seeks to target and it is an almost humanitarian effort that could change the world for small communities peppered throughout the globe. The internet isn’t just a fun way to kill the time, it is a source of information that can literally take down governments or revolutionize them.
