Facebook has announced plans to test a solar-powered drone it says will be able to spend 90 days in the air and bring internet connectivity to isolated parts of the globe.

Company engineers say the lightweight Aquila drone has the wingspan of a 737 – the same length as a Boeing 737 and will be able to ‘beam’ connectivity down from altitudes of 60,000 to 90,000 feet.

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Up to four billion people around the world still do not have access to the internet.

“Our goal is to accelerate the development of a new set of technologies that can drastically change the economics of deploying internet infrastructure,” Jay Parikh, vice president of global engineering and infrastructure said in a statement on Thursday.

Facebook has been testing laser communications that can deliver data at 10s of Gb per second.

“We are now starting to test these lasers in real-world conditions,” Mr Parikh said.

“When finished, our laser communications system can be used to connect our aircraft with each other and with the ground, making it possible to create a stratospheric network that can extend to even the remotest regions of the world.”

If successful, the technology would open up a new market of users to Facebook.

The company itself did not say why it was undertaking the project in this week’s announcement.

Online rival Google is also testing balloons and satellites to make the internet more accessible.