How to Stay in Touch with the Drone Delivery Service

Communicating with drones that typically rely on WiFi is a conundrum for soon-to-exist delivery services and others. AT&T thinks it has a solution. The radio links or WiFi that enable control of unmanned aerial vehicles is limited in range to a few thousand feet, and aren’t reliable for control over long distances.

In Wired, we read:

The solution may lurk in your own line-of-sight—on top of water towers and rooftops, or shrouded by poorly faked roadside “trees.” Qualcomm Technologies and AT&T announced today they’re collaborating to make wide-ranging drone operations reliable and safe, using current 4G LTE and future 5G networks. The drones will connect to the towers via modems similar to those found in smartphones and automobiles equipped with their own cellular broadband capability, and they’ll be controllable from any distance, as long as the drone is within cell range...