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Internet-By-Airship Scheduled For Trial Next Month
Reader ScrewTivo points to this Economist article on one of my favorite potential delivery means for high-speed Net access: stratosphere-dwelling airships. This version, from Sanswire Networks, is dubbed a "Stratellite," -- and one is scheduled to launch next month. As the submitter writes, "It's basically a blimp that thinks it's a geostationary satellite floating at 65K feet!"
Brings new meaning to connection is down ;-)
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
I really hope this becomes a popular alternative for satellites as a provider of these services. This has got to cost significantly less, and hopefully these saving will be passed on to consumers.
Support: This is Gas Bag Networks, how my I help you? Customer; Yeah, the Internet went down. Support: Can you describe the problem? Customer: The &!#!&#$ blimp crashed into my livingroom!
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Satellite is even more expensive and you can forget gaming or uploading.
has the technology to put geostationary satelites at just 0 mt. from the ground!!!
I really don't think this will be all that good. First of all, I don't know a whole lot about satellite transmission, but I know it's a lot slower than standard internet technology.
Combine this lack of competitive speed with the fact that your network is relying on floating things 13 miles in the air for its reliability. Even if this is no less safe than a server sitting in a room (which I seriously doubt) someone will still have to have a physical presense sooner or later to fix something or install new hardware.
Also, how much is this going to cost? Tons and tons of anything, including helium, isn't cheap. Also, as I mentioned before, maintenance will be a real pain. Not only will it be a real pain, but it will cost a great deal of money to perform. Even if your server only needs maintenance once every two years, that still adds up. This will equate to higher costs for end users.
Furthermore, I think the reliability will be rather low. I don't know why, but I just have a bad feeling about tons of servers and equipment suspended in the air.
Maybe my misgivings are unfounded, but I really don't think this will fly. (pun not intended.) I like the idea, but I think it will be more productive, cheap, and reliable to use lots of inexpensive 802.11 equipment.
Le français vous intéresse?
Not that it matters. Just curious.
Is that 65,000 or 66,560 feet?
Yeah, I think maybe you are just a naysayer... DSL and cable work great... if you can get them. I'm not just talking about 'less metropolitan' areas, as you call them. There are plenty of places where you can't get DSL (e.g. pair-gain) or cable (houses just aren't wired). In Sydney, for example - just read one of the many despairing articles on www.whirlpool.net.au forums. Even wifi (for example www.unwired.com.au) leaves lots of black spots. This is a way of giving an entire city access in one shot. Let me also add that this kind of addition to the broadband arsenal gives more choice - and more choice is good, right? :)
As for satellite, if you had RTFA then you would have seen that this idea is much less expensive and more reusable than satellites.
Does anyone know of plans to make a rail-gun that can shoot 65,000 ft. (No relation to this article, just asking)
finally some competition for the free-range antennalope:-p
DANGER! 10,000 Ohms
At first I thought it was one of those "IP over carrier pigeons" things that geeks do when they get really bored...
I don't know if this would be an issue, but wouldn't a giant wifi network f*** over the smaller wifi networks around the city? Like those that use DHCP for client machines.
Don't take life so seriously. No one makes it out alive.
I have been following stratospheric airship technology for years, and discuss some of the interesting tidbits I've collected over the years at:
http://thewired.blogs.com/teotwawki/
Under the technology section.
The military is considerably more technically advanced in terms of airship tech than what is currently being acknowledged. The big, generally slow, often triangular UFO sightings that have taken place over the past decade or more are sightings of next-gen airships. There is some indication that they may employ more exotic propulsion technologies than traditional blimps.
See:
DARPA's Project WALRUS
DARPA's Project ISIS
The Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency's tests of using airships as platforms for mirrors used in ground-based laser weapon systems
The timeframe discussed, as well as on-record comments from DARPA that electrostatic propulsion is something that is being investigated for the airships, seem to add weight to the argument that these are in fact considerably more advanced than what many folks may be thinking of.
There is obviously a lot of commercial use for stratospheric airships. Here's to hoping that this is a tech that may finally be ready to emerge from the black world!
Another article includes comments from the CEO that clearly implies that they don't yet even have a "commercial strategy for deployment."
Don't hold your breath folks. This is just a, um, trial baloon to get interest before their summit (aka sales presntation.)
The system is down!!!
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
Satellite works great? I take you you don't like to telecommute, play games, use voice over IP, or just about anything else that depends on latency. Satellites give you high ping times because light takes a long time to travel up and back down. These airships are high enough that the problem won't vanish entirely, but they are far lower than satellites, and the ping times should be reasonable enough to make applications like the ones I mentioned usable. This is an enormous improvement for users in rural areas.
:P, fixing things that aren't broke is what the technology industry is all about.
Aside from the fact that it IS broke, and no I won't pardon your insolence, stupidity, or lack of logic
At the very least, if this fails you'll be able to get good quality airships for cheap at auction. Imagine what you could do with one of these, it's perfect for up and coming supervillains. These things are suitable for heavy lifting and transport duties, allowing you to carry enough supplies to life off for months and even deploy helicopters. The location gives you excellent sensor range even if you're positioned over international waters, as well as making this an ideal missile launching platform.
It becomes even more compelling when you build a fleet of airships. With enough redundancy to withstand attacks and keep all the bases covered regarding supplies, fuel, deployable vehicles, and armaments, these airships would make a very suitable mobile base of operations. Perfect for those who can't be sequestered in a remote island lair.
Most important of all, just imagine how cool it would be! Put on some classical aviator outfits, go forth onto the bow, cast against the panorama of your harsh azure domain. Astride an entire world, master of all you survey, the piercing frigidity of the howling wind is surpassed only by your cold, unforgiving glare. No mere ant below can hope to contend with one to whom Olympus is but a speck, one who has usurped the very domain of Zeus himself. Count your days, hopeless mortals, for by this iron hand the sky is falling!
Why don't we instead 'ORGANIZE' and fight the political system that is against us with their big corporate cronyism campaigns with traditional protests?
We should be fighting for Fiber to the curb with municipal broadband and 100 megabit access to the net. We are being pushed around like 'slaves' . I am sick and damn tired of it.
Doesn't anyone understand that whats going on with broadband is a microcosm of our 'EVIL' political-corporate system.
When will one person in the media stand up against the cable monopolies and tell them that what they are doing by preventing municipal broadband is wrong.
Sorry, not enough blimps overhead.
Please try again later.
We apologize for any inconvienience.
Short answer : No Long answer: Using the dimensions of the airship (245 x 145 x 87 feet), the altitude (~65,000 ft), and some very basic trig., the airship would be 13 X 7.6 X 4.6 seconds of arc. if you were standing directly underneath it. Since the human eye has a resolution of roughly 2 mintes of arc, and this is far larger than the angular size of the airship, you wouldn't see it.
"Me fail English, that's unpossible." --Ralphie
I had a cox cable connection that was strung too low over an alley, and periodically some sort of truck would pull the cable down. I would call the cable company, and go through the whole rigamarole you describe, before, finally, getting someone who could understand that the physical cable was lying in my back yard and no amount of fiddling would make it work. To get those dingbats to understand that the cable was PHYSICALLY DOWN and nothing they could do would fix it took hours.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
This is just another wireless pie in the sky idea to defraud unwitting investors. My parents once invested thousands of dollars in a company that was promising to run wireless from the rooftops of tall buildings in flat cities. The same promises were made, but the crooks running the outfit took the money and ran off. Then there's a laundry list of big name flops in this area, primarily Ricochet networks (wireless from lightpoles), Teledesic (wireless by LEO satellite) and Terabeam (wireless by laser). I cringe at the thought of all the gullible people who went out and bought their stock today on the hype alone.. .
/. must be able to estimate the amount they can generate from a football-field-sized solar panel array, and compare it to how much power is needed. My guess is that it will be meager at best.
The FAQ on their website talks about no substantive issues. One critical factor is the amount of power available to the transponders, and this is not mentioned at all. Someone on
Another critical factor is latency. You are going to add 13 miles up and 13 miles down through clouds, rain, snow, sleet, and pollution. Wireless signals over 900 Mhz don't travel well through water, and can even be blocked by heavy tree foliage. So there goes 3G, unless you only want fair weather 3G. One thing is for sure, the latency is going to be worse than my cable modem, and it is going to have more periods of dead connection. Those who have had both satellite TV and cable TV will know what I'm talking about.
Latency is intolerable for the kind of high-bandwidth applications they are promising. Wherever you can get a wired connection, it would be preferred even it if it is a little more expensive. That leaves the potential market for "Stratellites" service to only those fringe situations where wired is unavailable. This is a far smaller market than the promises they imply in their so called "market research" page that talks about millions of Internet subscribers.
I see more pitfalls than possibilities.
At the 65K foot hieght they are talking about They are well above even the highest of storm clouds (50K feet is the top height I was able to find listed by the national weather service.) Also high enough to be above commercial and military flight paths. So weather is not a problem.
_ cedar_sporadic_e.pdf
s sue1/seumahu/seumahu.html
The other thought I've seen expressed concerns lag time With only 65K feet to transgress the lag shouldn't be any greater than wired communications in any single band. Point being that 13 miles isn't that great a distance for radio wave propogation ( 3,00000 km per second in vacuum ) So unlike SatCom where You have to calculate in Phase delay etc there is none of that affecting something at such a low height. Granted in it's initial phase it may not be the ideal gaming platform for some really lag sensitive games for most situations it won't be a concern.
What does have potential affects can be things like ground clutter (Extreme example turn on your microwave while using 802.11b in a small apartment.) Radio shadow. (tall buildings) etc. However these are things that affect a number of current radio communications systems and the 13M hieght will help. (Thats why the roof of the tallest building in a city is such valuable real estate)
The other neat thing is that you have a much lower horizon affect (the horizon is farther away from the top of a mountain than at sea level.) etc. I wouldn't expect it to be reliable for symetric communications links (The power down will be easier to create than the power up from a small device like a handheld. So give the db loss over the distance you won't find yourself serving a slashdotable server off of the connection. But for e-mail, blackberry, web surfing or sending off a modified spread sheet to the boss I would expect it would equal normal home DSL without a problem.
Strange too that no one ever talks about the lag in wired communications even though it is there. I remember as a child talking with my Aunt and Uncle living in Europe at the time on the phone. You really had a problem with knowing when the other person was speaking because of the lag.
Some useful links
http://www.cosmic.ucar.edu/related_papers/2002_wu
http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/SSC/CSER/UOSAT/IJSSE/i
URL:http://www.vigyanprasar.com/ham/IONOS.htm
I'm sorry, I'm to tired to be witty at the moment so this message will have to do.
Let us also remember that these 65,000 ft airships can also be used for surveillance. The U.S. military apparently has a black program using these as well.
Nyekulturniy... Proudly confusing readers and editors since 1981!
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
Large scale Airships/platforms can, should, and must be a significant part of the evolving technology for providing;
1. Global telecommunications
Smaller airships placed well above normal air traffic, provide a tremendous opportunity for cost effective, high performance, communication services. Other robotic technolgies use most of their energy to keep the airship aloft. By making the vehicle lighter than air, you can use that solar energy collection for providing service, and thrust. That and, a lighter than air vehicle could collect solar energy from much larger surface area making is totally self sustaining, and providing an operational life competitive with a number of satellites at pennies on the dollar in investment cost.
2. Cargo transport
Designs for high performance cargo and freight air transport (vehicles capable of hypersonic speeds) has existed for some time now. The opportunities for all people, made possible by large jet powered airship transport, boggle the imagination. The cost savings alone, and the ability to make decisions that turn on a moment, would enable the creation of new industries, while transforming existing ones.
3. Solar energy collection
Larger craft placed along a broad equatorial belt could in theory collect tremendous amounts of solar energy. These devices would operate at incredible efficiency, above the weather, and unhampered by significant amounts of obscuring atmosphere, a fleet of several thousand would reduce the amount of sunlight striking the hottest part of the earth, and might also make a dent in global warming. By keeping the ships moving the impact of the vehicles on any one place would be negligible. By using significant amounts of solar power, we could begin to loosen the economic and political stranglehold imposed by fossil fuel consumption, and protect the more critical needs for oil in the long haul (advanced materials, drugs, and organic chemicals.) Finally such craft flying at the right altitude could use a small amount of their power to reseed the ozone layer... this would be a temperary solution until the use of ozone depleting chemicals ends.
4. High altitude research facilities
We've spent many billions of dollars for putting telescopes in space and at the tops of mountains. By building ultrahigh altitude research platforms, we should be able to get most of the benefit of space based research, at nearly terrestrial costs. This of course presumes a robust economy in building airships at a reasonable price, but once the process begins, it should become self sustaining within a very few years.
5. And low cost space launch
It's possible to lift a significant payload and launch vehicle over a 100,000 feet using a powered airship technology. By lifting payloads this high, we eliminate 90% of the atmospheric drag encountered in carrying hardware into space. By adding solar powered magrail acceleration technology to small and medium sized launch vehicles with scamjet technology, we get a fleet of reuseable spacecraft, that can put significant payloads into orbit, at costs orders of magnitude cheaper than currently encountered. This would open a neorenaissance in space exploration and commerce.
Lighter than air craft are absolutely essential, in opening up the frontiers of space, and making possible the kinds of transformations in human industry critically needed if all the people of the world are to benefit from human discovery and technology. Rather than inventing better bombs, and promoting a superior theology, it's my contention, that the most powerful countries in the world must begin embracing a larger view of what's possible for humanity. That these countries must begin building an infrastructure for all people to gain benefit, and ultimately achieve the fruits of fulfilling on their potential. The future of people requires that we throw off our shackle, that includes the bondage of gravity, and the limits imposed by antiquated thinking.
Genda Bendte
"The meek shall inherit the Earth, the rest of us will go to the stars..." - Isaac Asimov
I'm sure DirectTV and Comcast have some in the works.
pi = 3.141592653589793helpimtrappedinauniversefactory7
Virgin Galactic, Richard Branson's new space-tourism company, which has licensed Mr Rutan's technology, already has £800m ($1.5 billion)-worth of ticket reservations, though flights will not begin until 2007.
Thats right, at about $400,000 a flight that means about 3750 people have already signed up. That comes out to be 1875 flights of the yet to be built space ship ones. I think this is very impressive because even with a flight of ten ships flying 25 times a year (quite unlikely, becuase they will mostlikely have to be overhauled sometime) it will take seven and half years to get everybody up.
That is, if they stick with the 3 person spaceship. On the discovery channel special I saw Burt Rutan working on a 5 or 7 person ship too. This would make things much more reasonable.
Yeah! Screw human rights and fair wages. We need FIBER to the curb!
Optical is unreliable for stratellite-to-ground connections, due to weather. However, there is effectively no weather at 65K feet, so the stratellites can talk to each other using lasers. These guys are claiming a 500-mile line-of-sight visiblity to the ground, but if you read the fine print, the effective radius to the ground is really only 75 miles. Of coures, 75 Miles is truly impressive. The 500-mile number is still important, because it is a good approximation for the distance at which a stratellite can "see" another stratellite using a laser, above the highest clouds. Consider a grid of these beasties to cover a region of 3000mi x 2000 mi (i.e., the contenental US.) This will require 6x4= 24 Stratellites. Using lasers, this grid can carry all long-haul traffic. Local loop (WiFi, 75-mi radius) would require 3000x2000/(75x75) = (30x20x4/3x4/3)= 600x16/9)= (3200/3) = about 1000 Stratellites. However, the population density is massively skewed, so we can use expensive antennas in rural areas and cheap antennas in urban areas. Using a rural antenna, we can "see" a stratellite that is 500mi away, so we need 24 stratellites to handle rural antennas. we now add "urban' stratellites as needed. Conclusion: 24 Stratellites will cover the US, giving base coverage of (say) 20 Kbps/sq mi for non-urban areas. We then add additional stratellites based on population density at (say) 100Kbps/person. Worst-case we need 1000 stratellites, but we probably end up with about 100 stratellites to cover the population.
Initially, I was impressed. But then I realized, how's my little-iddy-biddy laptop gonna get the power to transmitt WIFI signals to the airship that's potentially half way across Texas? I have hard enough time using my laptop in the back yard without losing signal, let alone half way across the state of Texas.