Internet access is becoming a human right. The World Bank has described it as a basic necessity for economic and human development. And yet, according to Unesco figures, more than half of the world's households are not connected to the internet. In many cases, those households are unable to afford it, but nearly 600 million people around the globe could not access it even if they had the money. There is no infrastructure and no mobile broadband coverage to connect them.
There is, however, a solution to this problem that uses neither cables nor masts, but our skies. A small number of aircraft, equipped with mobile networking equipment, are currently moving around the stratosphere, bringing connectivity to areas beneath them. And the ambitions for this technology are growing. In recent weeks, Deutsche Telekom has partnered with a British company, Stratospheric Platforms, to test a high-altitude aircraft with the aim of delivering blisteringly fast internet connection to urban areas. The vision: 5G internet access for entire nations, all via the stratosphere.
The technology is called HAPs, or high-altitude platforms. They sit above the weather and above air traffic, at a height of around 20 to 25 kilometres, where they remain for days or even weeks at a time. Perhaps the best-known examples are the massive, solar-powered balloons floated by Google as part of its Loon project, founded in 2011. Their capabilities were first demonstrated to the world when Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico in September 2017; Google partnered with local telecom companies to ensure that data kept flowing via balloons when traditional networks were disrupted. The experiment was repeated in May 2019, when an earthquake of magnitude 8 hit northern Peru. They saw their first commercial implementation earlier this year, providing 4G access to a 50,000-square-kilometre area of western Kenya.
However, development of HAPs is far from easy. Five years ago, Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg had big ambitions in this area; he launched Project Aquila to test whether solar-powered drones could expand internet access into new parts of the world. But after a number of setbacks – including a crash landing – the venture was abandoned.
"A successful HAPs system has to fuse aerospace, aeronautics, telecommunications and many other fields," says Ogbonnaya Anicho, lecturer at Liverpool Hope University in the UK and researcher of high altitude connectivity. "There have been a lot of struggles with aeronautical design, the elephant in the room being how to keep these gigantic vehicles flying in the stratosphere. During the day you can harness solar power and store it in batteries, which you can feed off at night. But what happens in seasons with less sunlight? Google's commercial targets for Loon depend on the location being 15° north or south of the equator. Outside that zone, they cannot provide the service."
There have been a lot of struggles with aeronautical design, the elephant in the room being how to keep these gigantic vehicles flying in the stratosphere
Loon has also had to wrestle with the problem of air currents pushing balloons off course. Google developed clever algorithms to vertically manoeuvre them into airstreams which take them in the right direction. Instances of them crashing received publicity that was, perhaps, disproportionate to the successes being achieved, but it nevertheless provided evidence that their reliability need to be improved.
A competitor, Airbus, has developed a fixed wing HAP called Zephyr whose movements are easier to control, but such craft still have to contend with the problem of staying in the air while performing power-hungry telecom operations.
Richard Deakin, chief executive of Stratospheric Platforms, admires the work being done with solar, but expresses doubts about its ability to deliver connectivity at scale. "[Solar] can enable HAPs to stay flying for a year, but you can't do a great deal with them because the power available for the payload is so small," he says. His company's solution is to power its HAP aircraft with liquid hydrogen, allowing them to remain in the air for nine days at a time before landing, refuelling and taking off again.
“They would each cover an area of 140km in diameter, and serves tens of thousands of users in each of the cells created on the ground,” says Deakin. He says the enormous number of 5G mast installations needed to cover an entire country – estimated by the Institution of Engineering and Technology at 400,000 for an area the size of the UK – presents an enormous practical problem that airborne connectivity could solve. “You would only need around 60 of our unmanned aircraft to cover that area,” he says. It would essentially be like running a small airline.”
Anicho, however, believes that urban connectivity should not be the priority. "Rural areas have a very tough, almost impossible business case," he says. "No matter how humanitarian it is to invest in infrastructure in those parts of the world, it won't be done because there is no business justification for it. HAPs should be providing that option. I don't want to lose focus on the goal, here, which is: can we get everybody online?"
As the ongoing pandemic shapes the way we live and work, the need to get every citizen connected becomes ever stronger. The flexibility of HAPs, in whichever form they take, may help to make that possible – whether it’s bringing mobile banking to remote parts of the world, or giving much-needed extra capacity in urban areas during working hours.
To supply that from a largely unused part of the Earth’s atmosphere is, without doubt, a beautiful example of human ingenuity.
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
From Zero
Artist: Linkin Park
Label: Warner Records
Number of tracks: 11
Rating: 4/5
2025 Fifa Club World Cup groups
Group A: Palmeiras, Porto, Al Ahly, Inter Miami.
Group B: Paris Saint-Germain, Atletico Madrid, Botafogo, Seattle.
Group C: Bayern Munich, Auckland City, Boca Juniors, Benfica.
Group D: Flamengo, ES Tunis, Chelsea, (Leon banned).
Group E: River Plate, Urawa, Monterrey, Inter Milan.
Group F: Fluminense, Borussia Dortmund, Ulsan, Mamelodi Sundowns.
Group G: Manchester City, Wydad, Al Ain, Juventus.
Group H: Real Madrid, Al Hilal, Pachuca, Salzburg.
How Beautiful this world is!
The specs: Fenyr SuperSport
Price, base: Dh5.1 million
Engine: 3.8-litre twin-turbo flat-six
Transmission: Seven-speed automatic
Power: 800hp @ 7,100pm
Torque: 980Nm @ 4,000rpm
Fuel economy, combined: 13.5L / 100km
Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
- Priority access to new homes from participating developers
- Discounts on sales price of off-plan units
- Flexible payment plans from developers
- Mortgages with better interest rates, faster approval times and reduced fees
- DLD registration fee can be paid through banks or credit cards at zero interest rates
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GAC GS8 Specs
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The%20specs
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Our legal consultant
Name: Dr Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
Pad Man
Dir: R Balki
Starring: Akshay Kumar, Sonam Kapoor, Radhika Apte
Three-and-a-half stars
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Electoral College Victory
Trump has so far secured 295 Electoral College votes, according to the Associated Press, exceeding the 270 needed to win. Only Nevada and Arizona remain to be called, and both swing states are leaning Republican. Trump swept all five remaining swing states, North Carolina, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, sealing his path to victory and giving him a strong mandate.
Popular Vote Tally
The count is ongoing, but Trump currently leads with nearly 51 per cent of the popular vote to Harris’s 47.6 per cent. Trump has over 72.2 million votes, while Harris trails with approximately 67.4 million.
HEY%20MERCEDES%2C%20WHAT%20CAN%20YOU%20DO%20FOR%20ME%3F
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At a glance
Global events: Much of the UK’s economic woes were blamed on “increased global uncertainty”, which can be interpreted as the economic impact of the Ukraine war and the uncertainty over Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Growth forecasts: Cut for 2025 from 2 per cent to 1 per cent. The OBR watchdog also estimated inflation will average 3.2 per cent this year
Welfare: Universal credit health element cut by 50 per cent and frozen for new claimants, building on cuts to the disability and incapacity bill set out earlier this month
Spending cuts: Overall day-to day-spending across government cut by £6.1bn in 2029-30
Tax evasion: Steps to crack down on tax evasion to raise “£6.5bn per year” for the public purse
Defence: New high-tech weaponry, upgrading HM Naval Base in Portsmouth
Housing: Housebuilding to reach its highest in 40 years, with planning reforms helping generate an extra £3.4bn for public finances
The%20specs
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Tearful appearance
Chancellor Rachel Reeves set markets on edge as she appeared visibly distraught in parliament on Wednesday.
Legislative setbacks for the government have blown a new hole in the budgetary calculations at a time when the deficit is stubbornly large and the economy is struggling to grow.
She appeared with Keir Starmer on Thursday and the pair embraced, but he had failed to give her his backing as she cried a day earlier.
A spokesman said her upset demeanour was due to a personal matter.
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Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
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- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
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- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
F1 The Movie
Starring: Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, Kerry Condon, Javier Bardem
Director: Joseph Kosinski
Rating: 4/5
Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
Specs
Engine: 51.5kW electric motor
Range: 400km
Power: 134bhp
Torque: 175Nm
Price: From Dh98,800
Available: Now
Banthology: Stories from Unwanted Nations
Edited by Sarah Cleave, Comma Press
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Infiniti QX80 specs
Engine: twin-turbocharged 3.5-liter V6
Power: 450hp
Torque: 700Nm
Price: From Dh450,000, Autograph model from Dh510,000
Available: Now
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The specs
- Engine: 3.9-litre twin-turbo V8
- Power: 640hp
- Torque: 760nm
- On sale: 2026
- Price: Not announced yet
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
UPI facts
More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE
Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems
Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions
Company%20profile
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ECompany%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EWafeq%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EStarted%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EJanuary%202019%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFounder%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3ENadim%20Alameddine%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EBased%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EDubai%2C%20UAE%3Cstrong%3E%3Cbr%3EIndustry%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3Esoftware%20as%20a%20service%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFunds%20raised%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E%243%20million%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInvestors%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3ERaed%20Ventures%20and%20Wamda%2C%20among%20others%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
