UK funds flying broadband stations with power beamed from below
- ID
- 24992
- Status
- summarized
- Published
- 16 Sep 2026, 4:30 PM
- Fetched
- 16 Sep 2026, 5:21 PM
- Provider
- The Register
- Category
- technology
- Original URL
- https://www.theregister.com/networks/2026/09/16/uk-funds-flying-broadband-stations-with-power-beamed-from-below/5296545
- Source URL
- https://www.theregister.com/headlines.atom
Summary
- Score
- 3.5
- Created
- 16 Sep 2026, 5:22 PM
- Tags
- Audience
- developerssaas_founders
What happened
The UK's ARIA agency is spending £70M ($94M) over 3.5 years on 18 projects developing high-altitude pseudo-satellites (HAPS) — aircraft that loiter in the stratosphere to provide connectivity as an alternative to orbital satellites. Success is defined as keeping a 300W comms payload aloft for a full week over the UK, with projects covering power beaming, fuel cells claiming 20x battery energy density, and drone constellations targeting £50,000 per unit.
Why it matters
For builders in Southeast Asia where rural and island connectivity gaps remain real, HAPS could eventually offer a cheaper, lower-latency alternative to satellite backhaul — but this is early-stage UK research, not a deployable product. Worth tracking if you work in telecom infrastructure or are evaluating non-terrestrial network options, but no action to take now.
Discussion angle
Whether HAPS concepts like power-beaming and relay-drone cycling could practically serve archipelagic and rural Malaysian geographies cheaper than Starlink or terrestrial fiber — and what the real blockers (regulatory airspace, weather, cost-per-unit) would be.