Verizon TV ad shows their drones at work
Everyone may be talking about the Super Bowl ad’s but here’s the television ad we care about. A new, Verizon TV ad shows how the tech giant is using drones for good, largely in light of Verizon’s 2017 acquisition of Skyward.
In a commercial for Verizon 5G Ultra Wideband, the company showed how its drones work in search and rescue. The ad showed how, with Verizon 5G Ultra Wideband, first responders could someday connect multiple drones from miles to help find victims faster during a natural disaster.
The 30-second spot featured Francesca Stockton, who leads Skyward’s Aviations Operations (Skyward is a company operating under Verizon). Watch it here:
5G Ultra Wideband is largely considered one of 2020’s biggest tech trends, expected to massively upscale network technology. Verizon says it could “provide data transfer rates faster than a blink of an eye, high bandwidth and greater opportunities for connectivity.”
That’s beneficial for transmitting data faster, but also transmitting data in remote areas (ie. operating many drones in areas affected by natural disaster, as the Verizon Super Bowl ad demonstrates. Less warm-fuzzy: it could help you download the 3-hour, 2-minute long “Avengers: Endgame” to your phone in minutes, or help power self-driving cars on a wide scale.
It’s nice to see Verizon demonstrating its ‘good uses’ of 5G in tandem with drones. People still don’t like drones, research shows. But this ad, which shows a use-case nearly anyone can get behind, not only helps to promote Verizon’s 5G tech, but to also promote that drones can be used for good.
Verizon acquired Skyward, a Portland, Oregon-based drone fleet management company, for an undisclosed sum of money back in 2017. Verizon has been heavily vested in the drone industry to carry out a number of projects, such as demonstrating a proposal for remote drone identification.
Skyward provides everything from software and consulting to customer success and sales for businesses looking to use drones. Their customers include construction company Hensel Phelps, Raycom Media (which owns 65 TV stations worldwide) and gas and electric utility holding company Southern Company.
Ms. Stockton…does Skyward have any capabilities to broadcast real-time audio messages from drones using your 5G technology? We have a drone speaker technology (currently using low powered RF) that I believe could benefit from your 5G capabilities. Please let me know if an airborne speaker could be interface with your 5G system.