Facebook Won’t Build Drones for Delivering Internet Anymore

Social media giant Facebook abandoned its plans to build pilot-less planes to deliver internet.

The planes were designed to beam down internet from the sky but Facebook has decided to abandon the project.

It was in 2014 that Facebook started the Aquila internet drone program. In 2015 CEO Mark Zuckerberg had commented, “Aircraft like these will help connect the whole world because they can affordably serve the 10% of the world’s population that live in remote communities without existing internet infrastructure.”

The news was in a blog post by Yael Maguire, a director of engineering at the company. In the post, entitled, “High altitude connectivity: The next chapter,” Maguire wrote, “As we’ve worked on these efforts, it’s been exciting to see leading companies in the aerospace industry start investing in this technology too — including the design and construction of new high-altitude aircraft.”

He added, “Given these developments, we’ve decided not to design or build our own aircraft any longer, and to close our facility in Bridgwater.”

The company had a facility in Bridgewater, England that headed up the Aquila project.

Disclaimer: We have no position in Facebook, Inc. Common Stock (NASDAQ: FB) and have not been compensated for this article.