I thought it was April 1st :)

[XH558]

Hexcopter ';Air Masts'; for wifi signal boosting

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2949604/EE-use-DRONES-balloons-boost-4G-1-5bn-spent-network-improvements-rural-areas.html

[AlanN]

 
Quote "It is likely they would be forced to land during periods of bad weather, meaning that communities would be without access in storms."

I wonder if EE have ever been North of the Watford Gap....

[orfordness]

Battery tech needs to take a giant leap forward to get drones capable of hovering for hours at a time...pie in the sky !

[kilby]

Hexcopter ';Air Masts'; for wifi signal boosting

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2949604/EE-use-DRONES-balloons-boost-4G-1-5bn-spent-network-improvements-rural-areas.html

A disturbance in the farce I can sense!

I think they are misunderstanding the term drone, I suspect it will be a tethered airship with a flight controller & radio gear and not a multirotor (they would have to have a very large fleet of both multirotors and staff performing battery changes)

Tethered would airships could possibly pull power via the tethers.

Then again considering BT is buying them and they are also  talking about using BT hotspots to provide voice services rather than using phone masts I suspect such words are being spoken from methane emitting orifice

[Hands0n]

This is so very EE-soon-to-be-BT. 

I recall a day sat in a presentation at Martlesham Heath (BT sci-tech centre) where one of the chaps said that within two years BT would own the entire Internet.  There was a stunned silence. You could hear the proverbial pin drop.  I think we were all far too embarrassed to roar with laughter.

That were in 1998.

[kilby]

This is so very EE-soon-to-be-BT. 

I recall a day sat in a presentation at Martlesham Heath (BT sci-tech centre) where one of the chaps said that within two years BT would own the entire Internet.  There was a stunned silence. You could hear the proverbial pin drop.  I think we were all far too embarrassed to roar with laughter.

That were in 1998.

Sounds like a dog chasing a car, if they had managed it (tee hee) they wouldn';t have known what it was or what to do with it

[flybywire]

This is so very EE-soon-to-be-BT. 

I recall a day sat in a presentation at Martlesham Heath (BT sci-tech centre) where one of the chaps said that within two years BT would own the entire Internet.  There was a stunned silence. You could hear the proverbial pin drop.  I think we were all far too embarrassed to roar with laughter.

That were in 1998.

Was he the same guy who turned down the Beatles Danny?

[Hands0n]

Was he the same guy who turned down the Beatles Danny?

Seriously mate, you had to be there! I was expecting Jeremy Beadle to jump out any moment!!

[Andy7]

Battery tech needs to take a giant leap forward to get drones capable of hovering for hours at a time...pie in the sky !

... well, you COULD power it from the cable it';s carrying.

[Dino]

I know that Southampton Uni were demo-ing a tethered UAS today in Norfolk.  The  concept is that you power it from the tether cable giving you a persistent platform that doesn';t have the ground or aerial  footprint of a balloon.  Clever stuff!

[guest325]

Wonder what the CAA would have to say about it? Or would the commercial aspect of it effectively silence them 

[Fletch]

http://www.google.com/loon/

[Yellow]

I remember talking to an offcom engineer saying they had been looking into using tethered drones as backup when doing work on masts or whatnot. That was almost a year ago, and the science seemed logical at the time, but for a permanent idea like ee propose seems a bit stupid since its weather dependant, and I';m sure far easier to steal for an opportunist

[XH558]

Then again - in 1980 I was the Manager of a Building Society and I used to joke with customers who were manually signing their cash withdrawal slips with a steam biro that one day we';d give them a sort of key pad on a wire and they';d type in some numbers and that would automatically authorise us to hand over the cash 

And now that';s even old hat  #wireless #contactless