Airships Tested As Two-Way Telecom Beacons

sgups writes "The Toronto Star (no registration required:)) is reporting about this firm which will supply spherical airships that will be used as high-flying telecommunications platforms to supply two-way Internet access across the United States and into Mexico and Canada. The article explains little of the technology though."

Comments

More Balloons and AUVs

[dailywireless]

Daily Wireless has more on Sky High Wi-Fi including Skytower which uses a solar-powered airplane. It has been used for 802.11b-enabled aerial photography. Skytower is designed to circle overhead, unmanned, for as long as six months, drawing power from the sun by day and from fuel cells by night.

The new homeland security department will require a massive global network. But transoceanic fiber is easily cut and the $800 million TDRS replenishment program with three satellites doesn't have the bandwidth. Intercepted SIGINT data is reportedly transmitted to Earth on a 24 GHz downlink using narrow-beam antennas. But the frequency swaths allocated for links are less than consumers can get on cable television. More bandwidth is needed.

One might speculate that a secret optical/IR satellite network downlinked in Hawaii might be developed. The European Space Agency, not to be outdone, says they're thinking of building miniaturised optical systems that fit onto a microchip. These optical networks might use optical CDMA which encodes each pulse,across a segment of wavelengths.

Cool Picture

[WeekendKruzr]

Although I hesitate due to the high liklihood of it being Slashdotted, the company's homepage has a pretty cool picture of the device in question. While the most of the comm gear is hidden within, you can see some antennae's and solar panels on the side. The rest of the site has lots of other interesting pics, but like the article is unfortunately very short of any tech detail. :-/

Re:This won't work

[thogard]

thunderstorms in Oklahoma typicaly top out at 50,000ft however they have been known to go to 65,000 ft. 19km is 62kft. The jet stream is at the top of the stratosphere, right below the stratopause which tends to be at 150,000 ft. They have a long way to go to get out of the "weather".

competition

[anonymous loser]

There is already another project called SkyStation that has a significant business advantage IMHO. It's already been in development for several years, and is backed by some rather large corporations such as Lockheed Martin (where some of the development is taking place).

However, given the current state of the telecom industry, I find it hard to believe that *any* of these projects will get off the ground (no pun intended) in the near future.

Re:visibility

[maggard]

You wont be able to see them. Even the giant airships of the '3os were invisible when flying at altitude.

As to casting a shadow the brightness of the sky (much less the sun) quickly fades out any shadow; the same as high-flying planes don't cast visible shadows (unlike low-altitude ones near airports.)

Any environmental effects of these would be very minimal, far less then those of a conventional plane or helicopter.

Re:Very Cool, especially for rural areas.

[GlassHeart]

A cell tower is the point where "wire" ends and "wireless" begins. As such, one end of it is tied to the cellular network, which in turn is tied to the land line network.

With a blimp, the end going into the cellular network must also be wireless. What you've then introduced is a wireless repeater, which consumes twice the bandwidth compared to a land-based tower.

The angles at which land-based towers transmit allows its beams to penetrate windows for indoor coverage. A blimp that flies higher would not be able to penetrate several floors (or even just ordinary roofing) to provide the same coverage, especially right underneath itself.

If the blimp cannot be kept stationary enough for doppler sync purposes, then you'll need significantly more complex software to deal with the fact that both the blimp and the handset are moving.

Not impossible, but there are significant obstacles.