In the last few years, access to the Internet has become such an integral part of daily life. According to statistics, there has been a massive increase in Internet usage over the past nine years. In 2005 only 16% of the population has access to the Internet. However in 2014, the number has risen to a whopping 40%.
Some countries have since made access to Internet a basic human right. As early as 2010, residents of Finland were given the right to one-megabit per second Internet connection. Likewise in France, the Constitutional Council has declared access to the Internet a right of all of the country's citizens.
Because of renewed view of the Internet, a few tech companies have made recent strides in providing the best quality Internet for everyone. Just recently, Google announced their research on providing 5G Internet connections via solar drones.
According to The Guardian, Google is currently in the process of testing solar-powered drones in a secret project codenamed "SkyBender." The company is conducting experiments in New Mexico that can possibly provide Internet 40 times more efficient than today's 4G LTE through High frequency millimetre waves.
"The huge advantage of millimetre wave is access to new spectrum because the existing cellphone spectrum is overcrowded. It's packed and there's nowhere else to go" quipped Jacques Rudell, a professor from the University of Washington in Seattle, about millimetre wave.
Google's project is not the first research grounded on the idea of millimetre-wave Internet connection. Almost four years ago in 2012, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency or DARPA has dabbled on providing Internet access to soldiers in the field.
"While some advanced commercial millimeter-wave components can be leveraged for this program, the technical challenge is more complex given the infrastructure and terrain challenges of a forward-operating locations," explained Dick Ridgway, DARPA program manager, in a press release published in 2012.
