Facebook and Google have both gotten into the aircraft business—or at least the unmanned aircraft business—in their efforts to blanket the planet with wireless Internet access. And at Facebook's F8 conference yesterday, Facebook Chief Technology Officer Mike Schroepfer said that the company had conducted its first successful tests of its drone-based Internet backbone and is preparing to move onto the next phase.

Facebook's unmanned aircraft will communicate both with each other and the ground using lasers instead of radio signals. The drones will be used in Facebook's Internet.org effort to reach billions of people in areas currently without reliable Internet access, "allowing everyone in the world to participate in the Internet,"Schroepfer said.

The drone program, codenamed Aquila, is the result of Facebook's purchase of the British unmanned systems design firm Ascenta—the company that currently holds the record for the longest solar-powered flight. The aircraft has a wingspan comparable to that of a 737, Schroepfer said, and the weight of a small car. Schroepfer told attendees that the completely solar-powered drones would "loiter at very high altitudes and beam down backbone Internet access."

Facebook is planning on deploying squadrons of the drones at altitudes of greater than 60,000 feet; the aircraft would stay on station for months at a time. When deployed, multiple aircraft would link together via laser communications to provide a network backbone, acting as routers to route communications from ground stations. Wireless networks tethered to the ground stations would provide user access to the network.

Google bought its own drone company, Titan, last year. Titan's drones, which the company refers to as "atmospheric satellites," are being integrated into Google's Project Loon, which has also investigated using high-altitude balloons to provide large areas with wireless coverage.