If you’re an AT&T subscriber and you think that the carrier’s network quality could be improved upon, chances are you’re not alone in this. The good news is that AT&T thinks that they could use some improving as well, and it looks like they have come up with a rather interesting way of doing just that.The carrier has recently announced that they will be using drones to help improve its network quality. As it stands, AT&T already deploys drones as inspection tools for their cell towers. However the carrier has come up with the idea to use these drones as an extension of their cell towers, flying cell towers if you will, to help enhance their network.
According to AT&T, “Connecting drones to our nationwide LTE network lets us capture data and feed it directly to our systems. In turn, this can allow us to make changes to our network in real time. By using drones to inspect a cell site, we’re able to conduct inspections more quickly and safely – and even access parts of a tower that a human simply could not. We anticipate this will allow us to improve our customers’ experience by enhancing our cell sites faster than ever before.”
They also list potential uses for drones to provide additional LTE coverage at large events, or even during a disaster response where providing communication tools to emergency personnel is key. That being said, drone battery life isn’t exactly stellar and they last a few hours per charge, meaning that this is obviously not a long-term solution, but it is a rather interesting idea all the same.