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

[KublaiKhan]

If they're the same weather balloons that the NOAA folks use, they float well above commercial air traffic lanes.

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

[SatanicPuppy]

Yea, it seems like it should be a lot easier to get more endurance out of these things than they're getting...The balloon idea is mainly interesting as a jump off for some basically autonomous station keeping signal platforms...A small blimp covered with solar cells or powered by a large betavoltaic battery or something...

As long as they're just spamming platforms that last for a day or two, the idea is pretty much doomed. The loss rate is going to be astronomical, and sending guys out in a truck to pick 'em up is in no way cost efficient.

Re:Rural area

[Anonymous Coward]

I would have modded you up, but you misspelled pole.

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)

Re:The Internet as a Mesh Network

[zienth]

The internet is a series of balloons...

Zienth

Dear Google

[Archangel Michael]

I have a BB Gun.

Re:Dear Google

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorta like shooting swamp rats back on Dagoba, yeah?

I was going to correct you but realized that being a pedantic Star Wars nerd is more embarrassing than being an inaccurate one.

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.

Be sure not to paint 'em red

[KublaiKhan]

We all know what happens when 99 red balloons are floating in the summer sky.

If they're carrying data, well, so much the worse...

Only a 24-hour lifespan?

[smooth wombat]

From the article:

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.

That's an awful waste of resources not to mention what happens if someone is transmitting a signal when the balloon in your area pops? How much does all this constant launching and recovering cost compared to just putting in a tower despite the remoteness?

I can see using these balloons for limited times, such as emergencies, or battlefield conditions where there are no cell towers (as the article intimates) but for every day use? I don't think so.

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.

Re:Only a 24-hour lifespan?

[Cyberax]

Weather balloons do not 'pop' like common toy balloons.

If you make a tear in balloons fabric - it will slowly descend as the helium inside the balloon leaks.

Of course, if you tear balloon apart - it will fall lake a lead weight. But it's rather hard to do.

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.

I wonder what they'll call it?

[Kelbear]

Let me be the first to suggest:

"Skynet"

The begining of the end of nice ping rates

[headbulb]

Mesh networks are interesting, but a wireless one that would be required would have way too many hops. Then the congestion on each hop would be high too.

Ping rates would go down the tubes.