Broadband from Airships

rustbear writes "The BBC reports that researchers looking to the skies to provide super-fast internet access via airships have proved it can successfully operate a data rate link of 11Mbps. Trials were conducted using a 12,000 cubic metre balloon, flying at an altitude of around 24 kilometres for nine hours. 'Proving the ability to operate a high data rate link from a moving stratospheric balloon is a critical step in moving towards the longer term aim of providing data rates of 120Mbps,' said Dr David Grace, the project's principal scientific officer. 'Balloons hovering in the stratosphere could become an attractive alternative as consumers demand ever higher bandwidth", said Alan Gobbi, the acting manager of the York Electronic Centre. With each airship being able to support an area of 60 kilometres, there would only need to be "a handful" to offer complete coverage in the UK, he added. Trials of the technology will continue in Japan next year.'"

Comments

need more info, just for curiosity's sake

[yagu]

Wonder what the public reception (pun intended) and reaction will be to the number of airships necessary to provide complete coverage.

Also, it's not clear since both the slashdot post (quoting accurately from the article) and the article mention coverage at "..., With each airship being able to support an area of 60 kilometres...". Ignoring the fact that kilometres is a measurement of distance not area, what does this mean? Since the article claims at that coverage they would only need a "handful" or airships to provide complete coverage I'm going to infer:

• by 60 km, they mean either a radius, or diameter, in which case the coverage of a single aircraft would be either 11,300 sq km, or 2800 sq km respectively. (BTW, they're going to have to come up with a coverage in the United States that can cover square miles!)
• exactly (or even approximately) how do they quantify a "handful"?

Regardless, I would still be curious if that many craft in the air would be an eyesore, or something we adapt to. There is anecdotal evidence resistance to these kinds of things can be quite strong even with benefits to the population (case in point -- wind farms). (And there is STILL resistance to and legal activity around where and how cell-towers can be erected.)

(I guess someone's going to have to fill me in on how large a 12,000 cubic meter balloon appears at 24 kilometers.... let's see, if it were a cube, that would be about 23 meters each side... which is about 65 ft. per side... okay, never mind... smaller than a jet liner at 78,000 ft... sigh)

Re:need more info, just for curiosity's sake

[MoonBuggy]

To give a very basic idea of what constitutes a 'handful', Wikipedia says the UK has an area of 244,820 km^2. That means that you're talking around 25 or around 100 airships (depending on whether the quoted coverage was diameter or radius), allowing for a little overlap. Assuming the former, it could be a pretty good idea - infrastructure upgrades don't cost too much when there's no cable to lay and only 25 or so units to update. Only being 24km up also means you avoid the nasty ping times you get with satellite.

Re:this is great but...

[SatanicPuppy]

Storms...At 24 kilometers in the air? Not going to happen. That's in the stratosphere, well above even commerical airline flightpaths.

The winds up there are more sedate, though they do exist, especially toward the tropics.

Area?

[Hatta]

With each airship being able to support an area of 60 kilometres, there would only need to be "a handful" to offer complete coverage in the UK, he added.

60 Kilometers is a distance, not an area. Maybe they meant 60km^2? or a 60km radius? There's a really big difference, watch your units guys.

Redundancy

[shis-ka-bob]

If I set up the electric grid so that everyone in town used the same transformer, a single terrorist with a TOW rocket could leave everyone without electricity. We cannot prevent all terrorists from ever getting a TOW rocket. How on Earth can we provide reliable electricity? We have redundancy in the grid.

I'll bet its easier/faster/cheaper to launch a backup balloon than it is to splice a fibre optic that was cut by a backhoe (the natural preditor of LANS.)

Re:this is great but...

[FooAtWFU]

The issue is when there's a stormcloud between you and the stratosphere. Water is very good at blocking wireless signals.

Re:Let's Improve Current Technology

[greg_barton]

...some balloon that can get blown, and harmed by the weather

24km high is in the stratosphere. Most weather resides in the troposphere, which ends at 14.5km.

C'mon, it's simple math!

[wurp]

I guess someone's going to have to fill me in on how large a 12,000 cubic meter balloon appears at 24 kilometers..

This is an easy one... your approximation of the sides is OK, but I'll use the volume of a sphere (4/3 * pi * r ^ 3 =~ 4.5 * r^3), so it's about 12000/4.5 =~ 3000, then take the cube root - about 14 meters radius. Now, the visual size of it is a simple proportion. If you want to know how big it will look at 10 meters (across the street), then just figure the proportion from 24 km to 10 m, which is 24000 / 10 = 2400, so at 24 km away it will look like an object 1/2400th its size across the street. 14/2400 =~ 1/170, so it will look like something 1/170th of a meter across the street. A meter is about 40 inches, so 40/170 = less than 1/4 of an inch. Since we were dealing with radius, it's 1/2 an inch in diameter.

These balloons will look like something 1/2 inch across will look from across the street. They'll be difficult to see at all.

-1 Misinformative

[2short]

Satelite communications work fine through stormclouds. Ditto all manner of ground-based communications passing horizontally trough many times as much storm as these signals will need to pass trough vertically. Water is mediocre (but sufficient) at disrupting a narrow band of frequencies. Engineers who can figure out how to keep a stratospheric communications balloon on station can figure out how to pick a frequency outside this band.