Airbus AALTO HAPS UAV high-altitude base station Zephyr is scheduled to be put into commercial operation next year.

Thanks to CTOnews.com netizen OC_Formula for the clue delivery! CTOnews.com December 3 news, Airbus subsidiary AALTO HAPS said: the UAV high-altitude base station Zephyr will be put into commercial operation next year. The drone base station uses solar energy and can stay in the stratosphere for several days.

Samer Halawi, chief executive of AALTO HAPS, said the company would first set up its first hub in Kenya to start commercial operations.

Samer Halawi says it can basically "fly for up to 200 days" in the stratosphere, about 20 to 50 kilometers above the surface, usually at the height of weather balloons, where it can serve as a honeycomb signal tower in the sky.

AALTO aims to provide services to customers in the third quarter of 2024. In addition, the company plans to build 50 to 75 Zephyrs a year.

As for pricing, there is no news. But AALTO promises that users can use 4G / 5G connections directly on their phones without buying any hardware, and 5G download speeds are usually between 100~200Mbps.

The CTOnews.com website found that Zephyr covers an area of 7500 square kilometers, equivalent to as many as 250 base stations on the ground, and the delay will be less than 10 milliseconds, while the average delay of SpaceX's Starlink in the United States is about 50 milliseconds.