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

ABOVE commercial traffic?

[NeoSkandranon]

Okay, so you cant use WiFi on a commercial flight because it has a possibility of jamming the aircraft's comms and tracking. Wonder what, if anything, will be the consequence of flying through medium-high (it has to have a bit of juice to reach 13 miles through clouds and whatnot, right?) intensity WiFi transmissions?

Re:ABOVE commercial traffic?

[Zeinfeld]

Okay, so you cant use WiFi on a commercial flight because it has a possibility of jamming the aircraft's comms and tracking. Wonder what, if anything, will be the consequence of flying through medium-high (it has to have a bit of juice to reach 13 miles through clouds and whatnot, right?) intensity WiFi transmissions?

Absolutely nothing. The interference issue is way overblown, particularly for WiFi which uses the same frequency as the microwave ovens that are used regularly on board aircraft without problems.

If there really was an issue with interference in aircraft the amount of stray electromagnetic radiation bouncing arround airports would have brought down plenty of planes already.

It is possible to measure an effect on certain navigation gear in certain circumstances. But don't think that the regulations about not using RF devices have anything to do with making you safer, like the airport security they are there to 1) make you feel safe and 2) make it easier and more convenient for the cabin crew to prepare the aircraft for landing.

Equally the complaints from the military about their radar have more to do with justifying a new round of apending on military boondogles than security. If a WiFi card can really take out US radar then hope that Saddam hasn't been reading slashdot or he might try to block US radar with a couple of hundred unshielded industrial microwave ovens... Remember that these complaints come from the same folk that are claiming SDI is ready for deployment on the basis of a string of failed tests and despite the fact that their own assesors believe that any country with the ability to build a ballistic missile has easily enough capability to build in countermeasures

As long as it doesn't cut into my bandwidth

[sonamchauhan]

It could be a decent solution to the last mile problem but...

[ From the article: ]
The other advantage of Sanswire's setup, says Molen, is that Stratellites will use a wireless connection scheme known as 802.11 or "WiFi."

I'm guessing the "advantage" is that they don't intend paying license fees for the 2.4GHz spectrum :). In that case, 4 or 5 competing Wifi-from-the-sky balloons (remember, each one has upto a 300,000 square mile range) could well make it impossible to setup a personal wireless LAN on the ground.

It's a good idea -- as long as they use their own (rented) portion of the spectrum, and leave the 2.4 GHz commons to us commoners.

Don't fall for it!

[grub]

Note how it's made out of Kevlar? What else is made from Kevlar? Bullet proof vests!

The kind used in bullet proof vests used by the secret government's storm troopers!

The kind used in bullet proof vests worn by the secret government's storm troopers which protect their mind control equipment!

The kind used in bullet proof vests worn by the secret government's storm troopers which protect their mind control equipment as it floats 13 miles above the earth!

The kind used in bullet proof vests worn by the secret government's storm troopers which protect their mind control equipment as it floats 13 miles above the earth beaming their mind control rays into you!

/me adds another layer of tinfoil to his hat.

Yeah, birds are already standardized for IP

[jcrb]

Read the RFC and they have one with QoS as well

Long range WiFi, Stationkeeping + Some more links

[StCredZero]

To make this viable, they will need Phased Array Wi-Fi as covered here earlier. This will increase their range to many miles. There is also a paper about stationkeeping for a group of such balloons.

Some more links on the story itself:

• 21st Century Airships
• Yahoo (German, Translated)
• www.telekom-presse.de (translated)

No, they'll float. It's all they need to do.

[Spamalamadingdong]

You can't make them stationary....
Let them float, they get blown around (world) by the jet streams. (Lots of surface area * 100 m/s winds).

Yes you can. The jet streams are phenomena of the troposphere. The stratosphere, where these things would float, is stratified (thus the name) and has little wind.

There was another company looking to piggy-back on the National Weather Service's twice-daily balloon sounding probes to provide cellular service in unserved areas. The latex balloons climb to extreme altitudes, and then often hang for 24 hours or more without moving much (according to the article) before bursting. If the relay balloons float at similar altitudes, they would require little power for stationkeeping.

Tie them to ground.. The tie down cable becomes an aviation hazard.

Big deal, you bar air traffic from the area. We may soon be doing the same to generate electricity, with tethers perhaps 3 miles long; check out gyromills for a jolt to your weltanschauüng.

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

Have you looked at the balloons used to loft cosmic-ray, infrared and the cosmic-background radiation experiments lately? Boomerang flew at 120,000 feet, thus requiring a balloon several times the volume required to loft a payload to a mere 65,000 feet. There is a lot of established expertise, and while this can't be considered a trivial exercise it isn't going to require much new work.