Verizon Offers Up Its Cellphone Towers To Help With Drone Monitoring

As drones become cheaper, more powerful, and more accessible, it is only a matter of time before everyone gets one of their own, whether it be just for entertainment purposes like how one might approach R.C. cars and helicopters, or professional purposes when it is used for filming or photography, or commercial purposes where it could be used for deliveries.

With so many drones potentially in the sky, it is only obvious that the government will want to keep an eye on them and it seems that NASA and Verizon have teamed up to help create a network that could potentially keep an eye on drones in the sky. This partnership came about last year although the details of that partnership recently surfaced in documents obtained by the Guardian.

According to part of the agreement, it will see both NASA and Verizon “jointly explore if cell towers and communications could possibly support Unmannned Aerial Systems (UAS) Traffic Management (UTM) for communications and surveillance of UAS at low altitudes” The idea is that because these drones will require some sort of connectivity in order to relay information, using cellphone towers makes sense.

Plus with Verizon being the largest carrier in the US, they have plenty of towers scattered throughout the country. While it does sound a bit restrictive, like big brother is watching you, there are some who are on board with the idea. “I don’t see a privacy problem with leveraging cell towers. If a centralised place is keeping track of these things, we would have some accountability. I don’t believe anybody thinks we should have anonymous drones the way we should have anonymous web surfing,” according to Ryan Calo, a law professor at the University of Washington.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Robots
Tags: Drones, faa, Legal, NASA, Verizon