Facebook abandoned helicopter drone project months after first demo

The Aquila drone isn't the only aerial internet project Facebook abandoned in the last year. The Tether-tenna, a small helicopter drone that could temporarily replace cellular service in emergency situations, was discontinued a few months after being shown off at the F8 developer conference in May of 2017, the company has confirmed to The Verge.

"Tether-tenna was a proof of concept project we were evaluating when we discussed it at F8 in early 2017," a spokesperson for Facebook said. "It wasn't something we pursued further as we chose to focus our efforts on continued development and advancement of our Terragraph, millimeter-wave, and HAPS [high altitude platform station] programs. We engage in a number of proof of concept initiatives...

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