The Future of Tech Support and Deliveries

This post is also available in: עברית (Hebrew)

Art Pregler, head of AT&T’s drone program and serves as director of national mobility systems, told GeekWire in an interview: “AT&T is going to be one of the biggest users of drones in the United States”.

While it may sound like a bold statement, Pregler is just reinforcing what John Donovan, AT&T’s chief strategy officer and president of technology and operations, said recently at the company’s Shape conference in San Francisco.

Long before Amazon gets its drone delivery fleet in operation in the United States, AT&T will be deploying fleets of robo-fliers across the US. The new “workers” at AT&T were able to start working thanks to regulatory changes. AT&T is now able to use unmanned aircraft systems to inspect cellular towers and check cellphone reception in urban areas. The idea is to give the crews a better idea what they’ll be dealing with before they climb up to make repairs.

Looking ahead, the company is working on specialized drones called Flying COWs (“Cell on Wings”) to beef up cellular coverage at concerts, football games and other large events. Networked drones could also provide emergency communication capabilities, either LTE or Wi-Fi, in the event of a disaster. AT&T not only wants drones for its own applications. It also wants to play a role in air traffic control for other companies’ drones.

Pregler explained: “That’s potentially a year out. We’re looking externally, into how to support command and control for a drone traffic management system, we’re also searching for ways to use artificial intelligence on our drones. At first, the drones would merely issue trouble tickets to order up repairs by human repair crews. Several years from now, remote operators might be able to use tool-equipped drones to fix some problems without having to have someone climb a cell tower”.

That will be particularly important once the Federal Aviation Administration gives the go-ahead for drones to fly beyond the operator’s visual line of sight. A drone traffic control system will almost certainly have to be in place by the time Amazon, Google and other companies start flying delivery drones far and wide.