Google has been secretly conducting a project in New Mexico that involves 5G Internet-compatible and solar-powered drones that may have the capability to transmit gigabits of data every second, which is 40 times faster than the world's current fastest wireless services, including LTE.

The project, codenamed "Skybender," aims to take advantage of the high frequency millimeter waves found on the atmosphere's electromagnetic spectrum. Theoretically, this specific region can transmit data faster and more efficiently than the frequencies handset devices and wireless Internet are using at present.

"The huge advantage of millimeter wave is access to new spectrum, because the existing cellphone spectrum is overcrowded. It's packed and there's nowhere else to go," electrical engineer Jacques Rudell from the University of Washington, who is not involved in the project, told The Guardian.

Millimeter waves pose a problem, though. In comparison to mobile phone signals, they have much shorter range. According to the report from The Guardian, the 28 GHz frequency that Google is testing at Spaceport America would fade in around a tenth the distance of a 4G phone signal.

While project "Skybender" is very much still under wraps, Rudell guessed that the team involved behind it would have to figure out how to use a drove of high-flying drones to focus 5G transmissions in a so-called phased array configuration. Rudell admitted, though, that this process is difficult, "very complex and burns a lot of power."

Google has obtained their permission to continue the test of their drones from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The permit allows the company to conduct their experiments in US airspace until July 2016.

Google is not the first to work on such an ambitious project. A program called Mobile Hotspots conducted by Darpa, the research arm of the US military, was aimed to use drones that could deliver one-gigabit-per-second communication "that is organic to tactical units."