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Weather Balloons & Wireless

Posted by Hemos on from the what-a-wonderful-world dept.

mansa writes "Over at CNN they have an article about a company that wants to expand wireless coverge with weather balloons! I hope it's not just a bunch of hot air! "

2 of 157 comments (clear)

  1. Hover at 100,000 feet? by tarth · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Is that really close enough to provide a decent signal? And more importantly (too me, anyway) is there anyway this could be rigged up to provide wireless internet access, 802.11b or otherwise?

    The article also says that 70 balloons are released every two days. I have wonder if 70 balloons is really going to cover all of America like they hope it will.

  2. Debris by scoove · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Every time I read one of these pie in the sky (or balloon in this case) stories, I can't believe the reporter didn't ask what I'd think would be the basic question: What is all this junk going to end up?

    We've had environmentalist complaints about PCs and all the toxic components they possess. Now some not-yet-defunct VC is pushing disposal cell sites and nobody's curious? What about when a 747 sucks one of these floating cell sites into an engine? And they complain about use of personal electronics on the plane...

    Heck, in high school we were told we couldn't launch balloon projects anymore (you know, where you'd put a note on it and ask the finder to call you and let you know where it ended up at) because the environmentalists said some sea critters mistook the deflated balloons for fish, ate them and choked to death.

    So where's the uproar from the ELF/ALF folks?

    *scoove*