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Broadband Blimps
mcabiling writes "SansWire Networks will demonstrate their "Stratellite" technology next week. For those of you who aren't familiar with SansWire, they plan to build a wireless network with balloons or "airships" as they call them.
"A Stratellite(TM) is a high-altitude airship that when in place in the stratosphere will provide a stationary platform for transmitting various types of wireless communications services currently transmitted from cell towers and satellites. It is not a balloon or a blimp. It is a high-altitude airship."
Looks like a blimp to me..."
A Stratellite is similar to a satellite, but is stationed in the stratosphere rather than in orbit
Sounds like an attempt to overcome the runaway expenditures of Teledesic's failed LEO project. The problem with these high-altitude sender/receivers is that--while they offer a technology solution--there is a corresponding weakness in application.
For example, latency in these systems make it unattractive for many internet applications (who wants to play FPS's over a spread-slotted Aloha CDMA system?).
And then there is the monstrous launch and maintenance expense...
Sigs cause cancer.
Something a couple of friends and I talked about ages ago was flying an ordinary wifi AP from an advertising balloon. Y'see, the longest run of CAT5 you can use is 300 feet. By coincidence, the highest you can fly a tethered balloon to (neglecting ATS zones) is... 300 feet.
why use nitrogen as a lifting gas. Everytime I pour nitrogen gas, it settles to the bottom. Maybe they have magic nitrogen.
--sig fault--
The idea of blanket wireless internet access for all is enticing, but what kind of battery life are you going to get in your Laptop/PDA when you need a PC Card that can transmit signals over Seventy Six miles to this thing? (Based on the Altitude of 13 miles and an expected wireless coverage radius of 75 miles)
Not sure about anyone else, but I lose an hour off my battery life for a wifi signal that barely reaches 100 feet.
Urge to post... fading... fading... RISING!... fading... fading... gone.
The things that make the stratellite airship not a balloon or a blimp, based on reading the fine FAQ are:
A communication platform that sits at 65000 feet and stays relatively still sounds like a dream come true. None of the cost of keeping a constellation of LEO satellites moving, none of the latency of geosync. This would also seem a great technology for providing ad hoc coverage to a remote area for a special event. Put a couple of moderately directional (say +23 dBi) antennas, one pointed at Black Rock City, and the other at Civilization, and you have low-cost temporary ludicrous bandwidth at Burning Man. (Feel free to substitute YOUR favorite boondock~based used-to-be-cool-'til-they-sold-out art festival if you are offended by BM)
I for one, welcome our helium filled stationary communication overlords.
How does the Slashdot Effect happen given that no slashdotters ever RTFA?
This is gonna go over like a lead balloon.
These guys played too much Final Fantasy ...
Just imagine, now we can have network blackouts and weenie roasts at the same time! Who is gonna bring the smores?
"When God kisses Satan and the Incarnations applaud." "Death is dead. Long live Death!"
Similar in concept but targeted at a different market. Their 'technology' link has some good info.
Techsphere
What's next? give controls to Barney again?
Barney: Hey can I pilot it?
Pilot: I see no harm in that
Barney: Wooooooarhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
*crash n burn*
we don't want that now do we
because when I think of technology in the future, I think airships!
Also, random fact: The spire on the top of the empire state building was originally intended to be used as a docking point for derigibles.
These guys, Halo Networks, tried to do this with planes... I just love the ingenuity that comes from a lack of rational thinking!
"I'm a karate man. Karate mans bleed on the inside."
Throw some jumbotron advertising on the sides of these and I just might start going to seedy chinese food bars in the rain.
vk.
What additional constraits will be applied to companies that want to float zeppelins over cities? Given the recent restrictions applied to amateur rocket groups, I question whether their business model will...take flight.
Considering the immense air traffic over most parts of the modern world, I figured this idea might actually work, and would require basically zero investment beyond the cost of the roaming access points -- no need to invent crazy new technology when there are already perfectly good airplanes up in the air every day anyway. I figured the airlines could be paid a reasonable royalty from the fees collected from users of the network.
The difference in pathloss between the SSP (21km slantrange) and the edge of a 75 mile coverage circle (122km slant range) is only 15.3 dB. Not an insurmountable design figure. You might need to use a directional antenna at the edge of coverage, where a more omni antenna would suffice at the center.
How does the Slashdot Effect happen given that no slashdotters ever RTFA?
If this ever gets off the ground, I will be very worried the next time my network connection goes down.
This account has been seized by the GNAA. That is all.
has a new website
Our subscribers will be able to sit in their home on a laptop computer while connected to the Internet at high-speed. If they need to go to the office or across town, they simply close the laptop and take off. When they get to their destination, they open their laptop and they are still on the Internet. If they need to travel to another city, they simply take their laptop with them and when they get to where they are going, they open their laptop again and they are still connected.
And
clear line-of-site to approximately 300,000 square miles
Now a rough calculation puts its radius of coverage at about 300miles
radius = sqrt( Area / Pi )
r = sqrt (300,000 / 3.14)
r = sqrt (95541)
r = 309miles
So the distance between a device and this airship is at least 300miles.
With that kind of range, is it realistic to have the gear in a laptop/cellphone?
Would it not kill the battery? I get shorter battery life just using wi-fi.
Would you need some kind of directional arial?
I'm sure they have thought of all this, but it does feel like they might be over-hyping the usefulness.
Paul Leader
I'm sorry, our blimp is down right now--can I have someone call you back when it's up again?
Doh.
-m
http://www.invisik.com
From the article:
"At an altitude of only 13 miles, each Stratellite will have clear line-of-site communications capability to an entire major metropolitan area as well as being able to provide coverage across major rural areas."
So what makes a rural area a "major" rural area? A complete lack of people?
There are 01 kinds of cars in the world. The General Lee, and everything else.
" Held in position by 6 onboard GPS units connected to the ship's engines"
WTF? 6 onboard GPS receivers? What's wrong with one good one. Surely a =10m precision is enough, and if it isn't they could try a differential GPS setup with two receivers, but six?!
Imagine 802.16 on one of these things.
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D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
The difference between a zeppelin and a blimp is a zeppelin has a rigid airframe. That may be what they're talking about when saying it's an airship, not a blimp.
Any aircraft that gets most of its lift from lighter-than air gases and can be propelled against the wind is an airship. It floats in air and it goes where you want it, so it is an air-ship. Ok? Blimps are airships. Or dirigibles--different verbal approach, same idea, because the word emphasizes you can _direct_ the motion.
Several operations have tried this high-altitude business. There are issues with it but if you can make it work, the advantages over satellites should be clear. Why not use an airplane? Because the damn things use a lot of fuel and must move faster than the airship might be forced by shifting winds to move--relative speed matters with high-bandwidth connections.
The high altitude is chosen in part for the coverage range, but also to seek a layer of air where the average wind _force_ is lowest, to minimize the power needed to stay in place. With this design of airship they are going to have to turn to keep drag down if the wind shifts. True of all practical designs yet except spheres which have unacceptably high drag in _every_ direction--flattened disks called "lenticular" layouts might have lower inherent profile drag but have a tendency to pitch sideways to the wind that can only be combatted with fins that break the symmetry. So inevitably they will be blown off their ideal station point from time to time, the question is can they turn into the new wind fast enough to keep the divergence small. It depends on what the system users consider a small deviation at that range.
I would wait and see if their next demo comes off. Their last demo was about a year and a half ago, using Techsphere spherical airships. Just before the scheduled launch date their demo airship blew away! Nowadays Techsphere is persuading the Navy they can reliably operate for surveillance missions--I don't know if they paid attention to suggestions from people like me about how to reduce the drag of a sphere or if they have just had the good luck not to encounter severe winds in their demos yet. But meanwhile Sanswire has clearly washed their hands of Techsphere! Anyway they have been here before. We'll see I hope.
Spaceship One Launch goes through Stratellite and cuts off cell phone service in the Mojave Desert.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
...or you can just get an AP that supports Power over Ethernet.
And they claim to have "duel envelopes". Do they walk ten paces, then turn and fire?
Besides their bad spelling, they don't address some other problems. Like just because the airship is at a height of 13 miles, doesn't mean that's how far it is from your cellphone. That's how far it is from the nearest point on earth. What about the distance to the edge of the coverage area?
Also, won't this technology force far more people's data into the same limited frequency bandwidth? I mean, currently, 2 people on cellphones that are 300 miles from each other can't interfere with each other's available bandwidth, because the signals don't reach that far (and don't need to). But with airships like this one, they will interfere. You'll be wedging 1 million people's traffic into the same frequencies that currently only handle 1000. Can that be done?
In the wired world, more wires equals more bandwidth. In wireless, there's no equivalent, there's only one "air".
The problem with fiber to the door is that it has to be to every door. If you put up one blimp, you get coverage to everybody within line of site. Rural areas are not cost effective to provide service to because you have to run so much cable to cover only a few customers. One blimp and you are good to go.
Now, in areas where fiber is already to the door, this brings in a benefit: competition. Your local bell or cable company can't extort you for access to that fiber because you've got an alternative overhead. Furthermore, you can fit many blimps into the same coverage area, which means, you can have a lot of people competing for your dollar.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
In order to make the laying of fiber (or any other cable) profitable, typically companies have to hope for a monopoly service so they can charge whatever is necessary to recoup their costs. But, in an age in which other means of Internet and telephone access exist, that's an impossible requirement. Competition would exist from day one from cable and telephone operators, supplying a service that may be "good enough" for most consumers.
This quagmire of businesses being unable to guarantee the business case exists for producing a modern telecommunications infrastructure will not disappear by itself. Resources need to be devoted, and unless people are prepared to actually act, not just talk about it on Slashdot, nothing will ever get done. Apathy is not an option.
You can help by getting off your rear and writing to your congressman or senator. Tell them that bandwidth is important to you. Tell them that you appreciate the work being done by telephone companies (both mobile and fixed line), cable operators, Craig McCaw, satellite operators, and now broadband-over-airship operators, to create an infrastructure that will provide more plentisome bandwidth to a large group of people, but that if new businesses continue to be unable to justify the huge expense of laying a genuinely large enough pipe to every home to create enough bandwidth to support just about any application, you will be forced to use less and less secure and intelligently designed alternatives. Explain the concerns you have about freedom, openness, and choice, and how the lack of bandwidth harms all three. Let them know that this is an issue that effects YOU directly, that YOU vote, and that your vote will be influenced, indeed dependent, on their policies on bandwidth.
You CAN make a difference. Don't treat voting as a right, treat it as a duty. Remember, it was thanks to ordinary people like YOU that we are now seeing such innovations as SMP in OpenBSD. Keep informed, keep your political representatives informed on how you feel. And, most importantly of all, vote.
KMSMA (WWBD?)
The most damning error is in consideration of dimensions v.s. displacement on the same webpage. Given that length x height x width = cubic feet (displacement), or L x H x W = D, and the website gives us everything except for width (W), then we have:
( L x H ) x W = D
W = D / ( L x H )
W = 1.3 million / ( 245 x 145 ) = 1300000 / 35525
W = 36.6
Imagine, if you will, an object 245 long by 145 high by 37 feet wide. Indeed "it is not a balloon or a blimp"; to me it sounds like a giant lighter-than-air GARAGE DOOR!
The same calculations with a guessed width of 370 feet provides for almost 13 million cubic feet displacement. Maybe somebody more cynical than I can calculate if 1.3 or 13 million cubic feet of helium are required to lift 3000 lbs at 65000 feet.
In the mean time, I'll hold my investment money for use with a operation that can get the details straight.
From the Federal Aviation Regulations:
- Airship means an engine-driven lighter-than-air aircraft that can be steered.
- Balloon means a lighter-than-air aircraft that is not engine driven, and that sustains flight through the use of either gas buoyancy or an airborne heater.
Unfortunately, they don't define blimp.
There really isn't much call for using hydrogen these days; helium costs more but it will be only a small part of the total outlay, it's not like in the 1930s.
BTW Hindenburg was _not_ covered in flash powder! That theory is dead wrong. Its main proponent made a complete fool of himself by staging a demonstration where he ignited a piece of the Hindenburg's skin with a blowtorch, and the damn thing just smoldered a little. It was the hydrogen, which was equivalent in heat release potential to 50 tons of gasoline but burned a lot faster, that burned up the ship and there is zero evidence the skin had anything to do with it. Or how come this guy had a piece of it to abuse on camera?
As for hurricanes--how fast does the wind blow 65000 feet _above_ a hurricane? Probalby no faster than winds are already blowing up there is my guess. If not, you can always have extra airships and station then upwind so new ones are being blown in as fast as old ones blown out, and bring the displaced ones down afterward and use them later. For the latter option it helps not to use hydrogen!