Verizon to offer data plans for drones and plans on testing drones that could act as aerial cell towers to plug holes in network coverage
Verizon will soon start offering data plans for drones, allowing pilots to connect their devices to the telecom's network to stream video and transmit …
Context & Ripple Effects
This is the second time Verizon has put its network at the center of the drone economy. In 2015 it partnered with NASA on a $500K project to track civilian and commercial drone flights via cell towers; now it flips the relationship, selling connectivity to pilots and testing drones as flying base stations.
The move also lands mid-race: AT&T had already been working with Intel on 4G LTE tests aimed at extending drone flight range, and months later began flying LTE-providing drones over disaster areas. Carriers are treating drones as both a customer segment and a piece of network infrastructure.
First-order effects
- Drone pilots gain a dedicated Verizon data plan for streaming video and transmitting telemetry over the carrier's network, making Verizon one of the first carriers to productize drone connectivity.
- Verizon's own coverage map becomes the test subject: drones acting as aerial cell towers would let the carrier patch dead zones without building new ground infrastructure.
Second-order effects
- AT&T is forced to match on both fronts — it already sells into the same use case with disaster-area LTE drones, so pricing and reliability of airborne coverage become a direct competitive battleground between the two carriers.
- Equipment and airframe suppliers gain a new enterprise buyer class: carriers procuring drones as network gear rather than consumers buying them as cameras.
Third-order effects
- If aerial-base-station trials mature, regulators become the gating factor — the same FAA that later negotiated the 2022 deal letting Verizon and AT&T expand 5G near airports would have to clear drones operating as transmitters in shared airspace.
- Cellular networks start evolving toward hybrid ground-and-air topologies, where temporary capacity is flown in for disasters and events instead of permanently built — shifting capex from towers toward deployable fleet assets.
The trend: Wireless carriers are recasting drones as both paying subscribers and temporary network infrastructure, with AT&T and Verizon racing to own airborne coverage.