Google Interested in Wireless Bandwidth Balloons

An anonymous reader writes "Google is reportedly looking into investing in or buying a company called Space Data, which provides wireless voice and data services to remote areas with a fleet of weather balloons fitted with transceivers." My mind is sorta tripping over how something like this could work, but I gotta admit that the idea is really cool.

Comments

Rural area

[esocid]

Space Data's business model is to provide low cost platforms for rural and remote data and voice communication applications via its high altitude SkySite network, which basically consists of an array of balloons equipped with a box of transceivers and other gadgets.

This does seem pretty cool, except since they probably have a short lifespan, as well as being manipulated by weather and wind, that these won't be extremely reliable. It's well intentioned but I am just not sure how this will get off the ground (no pun intended).

Balloon-borne transceivers are launched every 8 to 12 hours and last for about 24 hours before bursting and floating gently back down to earth. Each box of tricks carries a $100 reward for whoever finds it and returns it safely.

So they are sending out a constant stream of weather balloons that may or may not cause concerns with air traffic (I'm not sure how high these go) that will end up just sitting in remote areas when they crash. It kind of seems like a pipe dream to me.

Re:Rural area

[apdyck]

I can't help but wonder about the costs. If they are paying $100 per baloon found, that's a huge chunk of change - for every baloon, 36,500/year (100/day, 24 hour float time). I would think that having tethered baloons would be a better idea, as they would not have to try to find them. Of course, you're still looking at occupying air space, and real estate on top of it if you secure them. Perhaps a better model would be to pay individuals $100/month to have a baloon tied out in their back yard, or some such.

Re:Rural area

[mikael]

The Japanese experimented with incendiary devices that used the jet stream to travel across the USA. To maintain the correct altitude, the balloon would either dump ballast or vent hydrogen. It might even be possible to make of the fact that wind direction and speed can be completely different depending upon altitude.

* Building a balloon that could survive a three-day trip across the Pacific and then automatically drop its warload was technically challenging. Since a hydrogen balloon expands in the sunlight and rises, then contracts at night and falls, the Japanese engineers had to develop a battery-operated automatic control system to maintain altitude. When the balloon descended below 9 kilometers (29,500 feet), it electrically fired charges to cut loose sandbags. The sandbags were carried on a cast-aluminum four-spoked wheel, and discarded two at a time to keep the wheel balanced. Similarly, when the balloon rose above about 11.6 kilometers (38,000 feet), the altimeter activated a valve to vent hydrogen; the hydrogen was also vented if the balloon's pressure reached a critical level.

The balloon had to carry about 900 kilograms (1,000 pounds) of gear, which meant a hydrogen balloon with a diameter of about 10 meters (33 feet). At first, the balloons were made of conventional rubberized silk, but there was a cheaper way to make an envelope that leaked even less. An order went out for ten thousand balloons made of "washi", a paper derived from mulberry bushes that was impermeable and very tough. It was only available in squares about the size of a road map, so it was glued together in three or four laminations using paste derived from a tuber with the Japanese name of "devil's-tongue".

Balloons in warfare

The Internet as a Mesh Network

[DigitalisAkujin]

The beginning of the end for ISPs.

The internet will eventually become a self propagating mesh network. (Case and point: One laptop per child)

Why?

[ShadowsHawk]

I love Google as much as the next slashdotter, but I have to wonder where they're going with this. Android, the dark fiber, Wifi balloons, etc. It doesn't really tie into advertising.

Re:Why?

[peacefinder]

Google bidding in the FCC bandwidth auction in progress + balloon-based cell transceivers + dark fiber = cheap new national cell network for Android.

Of course, there remain one or two technical obstacles...

Google's day of reckoning coming soon

[peter303]

The stock market has stopped believing Google's undisciplined business model will be that profitable and driven the stock price down considerably.

Why not tethered?

[TripMaster Monkey]

It seems that if this company simply tethered their balloons to the ground, they could minimize losses, and thus could afford to deploy far more robust balloons, which could last significantly longer than 24 hours. If a balloon exceeds its life span, sustains damage, or requires maintenance or updates to its payload, it could simply be reeled in as a replacement is reeled out.

It's a Niche Business Model

[StaticEngine]

When people's Android cellphones are reporting their every move via a network of wi-fi weather baloons, Google will have totally cornered the market of Paranoid Schitzophrenic consumers.

Cost Analysis

[maokh]

Every 8 hours means 3 launches a day, or 1095 launches a year.

With even the cheapest base station hardware, helium, balloon (at say, $5000 per unit), costs would exceed $14.6M/year per site.

This does not include the labor to continuously manufacturer, transport, and launch equipment.

At a rate of $50/month per subscriber, you would need about 25,000 to break even on base station--hardware alone. This does not include the uplink facility, bandwidth costs, and business administration costs.

I have seen quite a few telemetry balloon launches and return of balloon hardware has never happened even once. Balloons seem fall in the most remote areas, getting caught in trees, landing in the ocean, etc. If a human ever encounters the hardware, they certainly are not very honest about returning it. Even at a modest recovery rate of 1%-5%, it wouldnt be worth the trouble. This sounds like a major environmental hazard too.

Whoever wrote this business plan is on crack. $15 million a year for the equivalent of 14 base stations?! In a rural area? Instead of using grain silos?

And what is this 'floating gently back down to earth' stuff? Unless they have a parachute, the tranceiver will not be floating gently back down to earth when the balloon pops. It will be plummeting

The FAA has quite a few requirements for balloons, including a) payload to have a parachute apon balloon failure b) radar reflectors so ground controllers and aircraft can see them c) remote "self destruct system" to release balloon, among others.

Alt:~25-30Km, Coverage:~500Km with 802.16*

[OldHawk777]

This is a possible reality.
http://www.worldskycat.com/markets/skycom.html