Wi-Fi From The Sky

Makarand writes "Some companies think that the answer to providing ubiquitous broadband access is to have telecom gear float high in the sky. High-tech blimps, called Stratellites, could be used by ISPs to carry their telecom equipment as high as 13 miles, far above commercial air traffic and turbulent weather according to this article on ABC News. At this height the Stratellite could serve an area of around 300,000 sq miles. Subscribers will merely need to put a small antenna outside and get broadband. The Stratellites will be perfect spheres and carry all electronic equipment within the Kevlar fabric and will not have any external fins or gondolas attached. Companies are already developing Wi-Fi sytems that could operate over tens of miles and these systems could be used on these Stratellites."

Comments

Great.

[xintegerx]

A lot of people will now be able to listen to free music anywhere, via internet radio.

There goes the RIAA. Also, this could cause us to lose our hearing of the sounds usually omitted from the tracks during MP3 encoding.

And what about radio waves everywhere? And people instant messsaging each other non-stop?

I know it's kind of scary and weird, but this future could all be possible in under five years. And once we get to wi-fi everywhere, there's no going back! And hackers will be able to DOS my toaster.

I for one, hope this development takes time :)

68000ft

[maroberts]

I would have thought there is some air movement up there, and it actaully has to get through the turbulent layer in the first place, so I presume it has some means of propulsion for station keeping....

This could be very popular in the UK!

[Anonymous Coward]

The Area of the uk is about 244,000km. This is small compared to the radius that this sphrere in the sky could serve!

Considering BT's reluctance to ugrade rural exchanges for ADSL broadband (including mine, I have to get my broadband from Telewest), this could kick start true broadband Britain.

since this is cool

[RestiffBard]

I predict it will never happen.

Re:Not good for gamers

[Hollins]

Where on earth do you get these numbers? If there is a distance-proportional latency, it should only be related to the speed of light, which is roughly 300,000 km/s. So the additional latency should only be 1/300,000 s for each km.

Never going to FLY..

[FirstOne]

Why not?.. you may ask..

You can't make them stationary..
Tie them to ground.. The tie down cable becomes an aviation hazard.
Thirteen (13) mile long cables of any strength are somewhat heavy.

Volume needed to lift ~10 pounds to 75,000 ft requires a balloon 30 to 40feet in diameter.

Let them float, they get blown around (world) by the jet streams. (Lots of surface area * 100 m/s winds).
Tendency to come down in unwanted places (Insurance companies nightmare).
(I.E. High tension power lines, Expressways, Planes in flight, Tall buildings, etc.)

Try to make them stationary under own power. Not!!
Bigger == More surface area to catch wind == More engine/more weight == Never going to happen!!

Re:ABOVE commercial traffic?

[The FooMiester]

I thought the real reason cellphones were banned in airplanes was so the airlines could maintain their monopoly on air to ground communication via $20/minute phone service.