NATO stocks up on data-sucking surveillance drones

NATO wants more data-sucking surveillance drones.

The alliance is buying five Global Hawk surveillance drones, according to The Wall Street Journal. They'll be based in Italy, and the first one will begin flying around either later this year or early next.

While it's a bit unclear how those surveillance drones will be used, there is a chance they will be deployed in Eastern Europe. NATO has recently sent more troops to places such as Poland, as Russian-backed separatists continue to battle Ukrainian troops in Ukraine. Surveillance drones are often used to monitor the locations of troops or anything of interest, and could -- theoretically -- help NATO gather information along the alliance's border with Russia, whose government detests NATO.

These Global Hawk drones will come with a need for huge amounts of satellite bandwidth, which allows the drone to process data -- in a similar fashion to your internet connection. In the words of one NATO official quoted in the Journal's story, the Global Hawk is a "vacuum cleaner of data," so it needs more satellite bandwidth to keep it fed.

But while at least one drone has a shot at being ready by the end of the year, the satellite bandwidth the drones need to function won't be. Businesses are expected to shower NATO with bids to boost the alliance's satellite bandwidth late this year.