The Drone Co-operative

Introduction

With the advances of commercial drone technology and parallel computing I’ve started to envisage a possible future where small companies or a co-operative of entrepreneurs can create there own city-wide internet/telephony platforms.

The main premise is that commercial drones would be used to deliver a small-scale web service to customers. This service would allow users to freely access a city-based intranet/social media service which is separate from anything offered on the internet, therefore offering a more secure method of local communication. 

Separately, full web-access could be offered for a monthly fee. Again to create a more secure framework, an integrated web search feature would be introduced therefore by-passing existing web offerings such as Google and Bing.

This integrated search would give preference to local search results over what we have now, which is a conglomerate based one, with large companies able to hold sway.

Users may flock to the new system in the knowledge that access data on them is not being offered for use by conglomerates.

In a world where the introduction of Augmented Reality technology such as Google Glasses and the inferred extra private data that will eventually be held on consumers, those consumers may now be extremely interested in having a new type of secure local web provider.

The Co-operative Approach

I foresee a situation whereby a number of small drone companies as well as private entrepeneurs would come together as a co-operative so that there drones could be used in this manner, therefore reducing cost issues.

These commercial drones would obviously continue in their normal business operations, providing specialist contract work to larger companies.

Technical advances envisaged

Obviously the above technical platform is not available right now, it takes into account that advances in certain areas will continue:

• that commercial drones will continue to evolve:
  • have greater range and time in the air
  • can be placed into specified geosynchronous orbits
  • have on-board server technology
    
• that the advances in parallel computing continue to gain pace offering small companies the ability to create there own high performance server farms for a very low outlay.

The following web articles give credence to the above statements:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/click_online/9708309.stm

http://mashable.com/2012/03/19/the-pirate-bay-drones/

http://phys.org/news/2013-04-adapteva-parallel-boards-summer.html

http://www.azcentral.com/business/news/articles/20130424telecom-equipped-drones-could-revolutionize-wireless-market.html?nclick_check=1

Next steps

I do need to do some more thinking about whether this really would be something people might be interested in and whether government would indeed ever allow it. I’m extremely interested what this approach could mean for new concepts such as Big Data, as we move forward.