British mobile carrier EE has unveiled plans to use a fleet of drones and miniature blimps
to supply cell phone coverage to rural areas of the UK. The company
says its “air mast” network could be used in the wake of natural
disasters as well as during events like soccer matches, where crowds
congest mobile networks. The company, which is owned by BT, expects to
deploy the technology in the field for the first time this year.
Like Facebook’s drones and Google’s balloons,
the basic idea is to use airborne craft to beam signal down to users
below. The blimps and drones are equipped with miniature mobile sites,
including a basestation and antenna, and supply LTE coverage (or 4G, as
it’s known in the UK). The blimps hover at a height of roughly 150 feet
and can cover an area 4 kilometers wide. The drones are a more temporary
measure, and can provide coverage over an area 2 kilometers wide for a
few hours at a time.
In a press statement,
EE CEO Marc Allera said technology like this would “revolutionize the
way people connect.” “We're developing the concept of 'coverage on
demand',” says Allera. “What if an event organizer could request a
temporary EE capacity increase in a rural area, or a climber going up
Ben Nevis could order an EE aerial coverage solution to follow them as
they climb?”
More prosaically, though, these blimps and drones provide a PR-friendly face for EE’s management of the UK’s Emergency Services Network
or ESN. This is a comms network dedicated to emergency services. For
this, though, EE won’t be using its drones or blimps, but a fleet of 32
“rapid response vehicles” — Mitsubishi trucks retrofitted with 11-foot
mobile masts. In an emergency situation, or when networks are down due
to maintenance, these trucks will be deployed to ensure that the police,
fire service, and ambulances never lose signal.
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