https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/06/facebook-drops-solar-powered-internet-drone-business-cans-aquila/

It was supposed to be the future of digital communications, helping to connect the "next five billion people" to the Internet. But Facebook has now shut down its internal effort to build high-altitude solar-powered drones to provide a backbone for Internet connectivity in areas lacking wired infrastructure. In a blog post yesterday, Facebook's Yael Maguire announced that the company is shuttering its Aquila drone program.

The goal of the Aquila program was to create a drone that could stay aloft for months at a time, orbiting over a geographic area at high altitude to provide a persistent radio link. Facebook based Aquila on the work of the UK-based drone research company Ascenta, which Facebook acquired in 2014—incorporating the operation into the company's Connectivity Lab and Internet.org project. The original plan was to use laser communications links between Aquila drones to provide a backbone network to provide Internet connectivity to ground stations.