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?

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)