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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.
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)
Well, first of all, this can be a lot faster than setellite, because you only have 13 miles of time lag, instead of 24,000 miles. Second, maintenance is a lot easier than satellite. Once you have a satellite in geostationary orbit, even the shuttle can't service it - even when the shuttle is flying. And how expensive is it? Well, it's less expensive than launching into geostationary orbit... But is it enough cheaper than cable/DSL and enough faster than dialup to matter to people? I don't know.
The system is down!!!
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
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!
Support: Sir, the network appears to be fine. We have not received any reports of trouble from your area.
Customer: I can see the blimp smoldering in my living room.
Support: We require several people in your area to report a problem before we can open a ticket for you.
Custumer: The blimp has crashed through my living room ceiling, I need help.
Support: Sir, what operating system are you running?
Customer: Why does that matter, the blimb is down. Please send someone.
Support: Sir, are you using a router?
Customer: Uh, yes.
Support: Sir, could you please reset your router by unplugging it, waiting 30 seconds, and then powering it on. Please tell me when you have done this.
Customer: What does my router have to do with the blimp crashing!!
Support: Sir, lets try disconnecting your router completely and plugging your network directly into the BlimpoNIC.
Customer: Listen here buddy, there is nothing wrong with my computer. Your blimp has crashed into my living room!
Support: Sir, let me connect you to our public relations department. Before I do so, is there anything else I can help you with today?
Customer: No!
Support: I'm transferring you now sir.
Click...DIALTONE
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!
>>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.
These things will be much closer (by a factor of 1000) than satelites, so they should be competitive speedwise, and use far less power to transmit. Theyll also cover a much smaller area each, and thus allow for more bandwidth
>> someone will still have to have a physical presense sooner or later to fix something or
>> install new hardware.
Satellites dont need (or are able to receive) maintenence. nd in any case these things should be able to be floated down for repairs
>>Also, how much is this going to cost?
A lot, but far less than sattelites. My guess is that it will be comparable to a 3G mobile network.
>>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.
Well, the stratosphere is a reasonably quiet place, with no changing weather. It is far above commercial planes. I thinks they can use ionic engines for station keeping. These are reliable (years of continuous use) and low consumption.
>>I think it will be more productive, cheap, and reliable to use lots of inexpensive 802.11
>>equipment.
I think covering entire cities with wi-fi (with all ensuing basing concessions and line of sigth issues) would be more unpractical than having one or two stratospheric blimps floating above.
- Geosync orbit is 35786 km. Latency is at least 240ms one way for any packet (up and back) - higher if you are not directly under the satellite. Talk to any gamer and they would be unimpressed. With this, at 65000ft or about 20km, the latency due to distance is under 1ms.
- Its cheap - as they say you can quickly drop one anywhere, anytime you need it. e.g. place one above a ballgame to deal with all the cellphone calls (and whose to say they can't lower it if the weathers ok!)
As to the market... I live in Auckland, NZ, and we have a very slow uptake of broadband due to a single provider who owns all copper to the house (read: ugly monopoly and weak government regulator). Other wireless options exist if you live close to them (e.g. if you can see the skytower). Drop one of these above the city and bingo - broadband for the price of an aerial.I think that model is transportable - anywhere the infrastructure is too expensive or too difficult to provide broadband or telephones - simply drop in one of these. For example:
- Monopoly copper to the house
- Difficult terrain
- Sparse neighborhoods
And they are relatively cheap - its just a balloon. A nice one, sure, but still just a balloon. One that they can take down and service. Can't do that with a satellite.Obviously another satisfied AOL customer.
"OH SHIT, THERE'S A HORSE IN THE HOSPITAL!"
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
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