The airships are back again...

dahamsta

Enjoy your time in the spotlight lads, it's only a matter of time before the ARRL digs up some dirt on you...

ARRL Press Release: "These platforms restrict our right to mount monstrous, bizarre looking masts above a height of 20km! They should be shot out of the sky!"

Airships to deliver broadband to rural areas
by Jan Libbenga
Posted: 20/01/2004 at 11:01 GMT

A new international €5.6m project aims to make Broadband internet available to remote rural areas and even moving trains by using airships, the University of York (UK) announced yesterday.

Scientists will build High Altitude Platforms (HAPs): airships or solar-powered aircraft, which are permanently located in the skies at an altitude of 20 kilometers, above aero planes but below satellites (images here). The project will deliver broadband connections which are 2,000 times faster than by a traditional modem and 200 times faster than ‘wired’ ADSL broadband.

The solution will be cheaper and more efficient than current technologies, the scientists claim. High Altitude Platforms do not require cabling or masts - which can be both expensive and inconvenient - to deliver broadband.

[...]

Ripwave

Originally posted by dahamsta
High Altitude Platforms do not require cabling or masts

But do they require planning permission?

spongebob

1. The World Radio Conference in the summer reserved a load of spectrum in the Ghz bands for these lads .

2. They can be fast-tracked if added to the list of key Infrastructural elements (liek power stations and pipelines) in the forthcoming Infrastructure Bill.

M

Mailman

The heliplat web site showed 4 of these planes could cover all of Italy and it's Islands.
At 20KM high you could probably cover all of Ireland with one of these planes.

They mentioned being 3G compatible.

I'd be interested to see if TV could be broadcast via this service - our current transmitter network is supposed to be relatively expensive to maintain.

Capt'n Midnight

No technical reason why TV couldn't be broadcast this way - receiving might be a different matter. Terresterial TV chucks out 100's of KW's which migh be a bit much for a ballon - so you may need a decent aerial to compensate for a weaker signal. Less chance of ghosting and lots of types of inteference (leaves etc.)

Satellites chuck out maybe 150watts so no problem to provide that much power - you'd need some class of dish and lnb and decoder box though..

MMDS should be doable - but there would be a fuss over the licenses.

There might be a chance that you could setup it up as a 5.8GHz repeater (two point to point links) but you would need specialist gear because of timings over such a long link.

Laser is another option.

For a country as small as Ireland you would not need to go much higher than the weather system / commercial jets (no more concorde & the Air Corps aren't exactly going to cause traffic jams up there) to see most of the population.

Xian

http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1149.html

A Standard for the Transmission of IP Datagrams on Avian Carriers

Overview and Rational

Avian carriers can provide high delay, low throughput, and low
altitude service. The connection topology is limited to a single
point-to-point path for each carrier, used with standard carriers,
but many carriers can be used without significant interference with
each other, outside of early spring. This is because of the 3D ether
space available to the carriers, in contrast to the 1D ether used by
IEEE802.3. The carriers have an intrinsic collision avoidance
system, which increases availability. Unlike some network
technologies, such as packet radio, communication is not limited to
line-of-sight distance. Connection oriented service is available in
some cities, usually based upon a central hub topology.

LFCFan

Ireland is struggling to catch up with ADSL technology (which is ancient at this stage in Broadband terms) so what chance of using one of these HAPs? Maybe if we start campaigning now we might get one 10 years after Ethiopia

Capt'n Midnight

Originally posted by Xian
http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1149.html

A Standard for the Transmission of IP Datagrams on Avian Carriers

See also http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2549.html
and http://www.ne2.com/

Fallschirmjager

jesus there must be one company out there willing to chance this...

one..anyone..anyone...

this is the type of lateral thinking we now need IMHO

wexfordman

Would anyone know what sort of lag would you get with these things ? I.e would it be similar to sattelite, leaving voip, gaming etc as a non runner ?

Wexfordman

Moriarty

It wouldn't be like satellite, the latency increases would be negligable for 20km - less than 1ms.

Comparably, a satellite in geosynchronous orbit would be ~35,900km up.

spongebob

theres a fibre running up the tether rope for backhaul, the wireless local loop is Balloon-CPE

LOS not an issue unless the train is in a tunnel

M

dahamsta

I didn't think they were tethered. I thought they stayed in position via GPS and wee motors and broke out using a wireless connection. Or is that the platform in my head that'll make some other bastard millions?

adam

sceptre

Originally posted by dahamsta
I didn't think they were tethered. I thought they stayed in position via GPS and wee motors and broke out using a wireless connection. Or is that the platform in my head that'll make some other bastard millions?

I'm being a bit simplistic (which is OK because I'm a simple sort of chap) but it's probably cheaper to keep them tethered. Stopping them from falling is largely the same cost whether they're tethered or not but they won't float up if there's a big rope holding them down. That big rope will keep them roughly in position all the time as opposed to running a motor all the time to do the same thing. Unless I'm being too simple (I haven't bought magic beans in over a month though). Of course if the solar powered bit works, the cost factor doesn't matter all that much and you should go and fill out a dodgy patent now.

spongebob

tethered balloons with comms faciities go back to the Franco-Prussian war of 1870 and cannot be patented .....its prior art lads.

M

Capt'n Midnight

Originally posted by Moriarty
It wouldn't be like satellite, the latency increases would be negligable for 20km - less than 1ms.

Comparably, a satellite in geosynchronous orbit would be ~35,900km up.

WiFi would have problems over those sort of distances without serious tweaking - also 20Km is only if you are directly under it - 40-50Km might be more realistic.

sceptre - they would not be teathered - 20Km of cable is not light and there is less bouyance up there - at ground level 1m3 of air weighs ~ 1kg etc.

Moriarty

Originally posted by Capt'n Midnight
WiFi would have problems over those sort of distances without serious tweaking - also 20Km is only if you are directly under it - 40-50Km might be more realistic.

Wifi can work perfectly well over >50KM distances with modified drivers that are already commercially available and in pretty widespread use.

Capt'n Midnight

Like I said tweaking - ie. not the standard interoperable , ie a little proprioratory - vendor / equipment lock in.

They won't be Teathered - 20Km of cable of 1cm2 cross section would work out at 20m3 - if it was steel it would be the best part of 100 tonnes !

Remember up above the clouds the sun shines all day.

=============================

The teathered ballons were at 1.5Km
from online calculators the horizon would be 138Km
(ok it would be less cos of fresnel effects etc.)

Urban Weigl

Originally posted by Capt'n Midnight
WiFi would have problems over those sort of distances without serious tweaking - also 20Km is only if you are directly under it - 40-50Km might be more realistic

Wi-fi doesn't have any problems operating over long distances, as long as the timing is set correctly. Up to 50km certainly would not present a problem, especially since there would be LOS and no fresnel zone. However, wifi is too limited in other ways to make it viable in a service such as this, specifically capacity/quality of service, security, etc.. It would need to be using a licensed frequency to be honest as well.

Fallschirmjager

50km, i seem to recall a person working for the UK govmint saying 9 balloons would supply BB to all of th UK

i will see can i find it again

Fallschirmjager

well right idea but i had the wrong technology

http://www.vnunet.com/News/1123771

it was for 3g networks....

looks like Muck got it right some of the reviews were saying 1mbit connection for 30,000 subscribers in a 40km radius

www.skylinc.co.uk

is the crowd doing it in the UK