Posted on 01/30/2006 2:08:02 PM PST by Cagey
BISMARCK, N.D. - Why put up costly cell phone towers in thinly populated areas, when a few balloons would do? In North Dakota, former Gov. Ed Schafer is backing a plan to loft wireless network repeaters on balloons high above the state to fill gaps in cellular coverage.
"I know it sounds crazy," said Schafer, who now heads Extend America Inc., a wireless telecommunications company. "But it works in the lab."
Extend America and Chandler, Ariz.-based Space Data Corp. are developing the technology, which is believed to be the first to use disposable balloons to provide cellular coverage.
A trial balloon will be launched in the next few weeks to test the idea, said Schafer, who left office in 2000 after eight years as governor.
"To cover every square mile of North Dakota, it would take 1,100 cell towers," Schafer said. "We can do the whole state with three balloons."
If successful, the hydrogen-filled balloons could be drifting across the stratosphere above North Dakota this summer, providing cellular coverage at a tiny fraction of the cost of building cellular towers.
Jerry Knoblach, the CEO of Space Data, says that although the balloon technology, called SkySite, is new to the cellular industry, "the platform is very well proven" for other purposes.
His company has launched thousands of the free-floating balloons in Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas and New Mexico over the past year. The wireless data network they encompass tracks oil company vehicles and monitors the production of oil wells and pipelines, he said.
Knoblach is certain the balloons will work for cellular service in North Dakota — even in cold or stormy weather. He said balloons were launched even during Hurricane Katrina.
Up to 20 miles above the earth, well above commercial airliner pathways, steady stratospheric winds would push the latex balloons across the state at about 30 mph. Each balloon would deliver voice and data service to an area hundreds of miles in diameter.
"Nine balloons would always be in the air, with some going up, some going down, and some in the middle," Schafer said.
The balloons swell from six feet in diameter to 30 feet after they gain altitude. Once a balloon leaves the state, its toaster-size communications pod would jettison, deploy a parachute and fall to earth, where it would signal its position.
"We'd pay some guy a bounty, put in a new battery pack and send it off again," Knoblach said. Schafer said the repeater could be used indefinitely "unless it lands in a lake or gets run over by a truck."
After the electronic equipment is released, the balloons rise and expand with the drop in air pressure until they burst. Knoblach said the balloons cost about $55 each.
Schafer said it costs about $250,000 to build one cellular tower in North Dakota, and many remote areas don't have enough customers to pay for it.
"The nice thing is that we don't have to weld a bunch of steel together to build a tower," Schafer said. "We just let these babies go."
Weston Henderek, a senior wireless analyst with Current Analysis of Sterling, Va., said he was not aware of a similar system of using balloons to provide wireless relays.
"It's difficult to say whether it's a pie-in-the-sky idea or if it will actually work," he said. "It's one of those cutting-edge type of things that people are starting to look at. It will be interesting to see how the testing pans out."
At the height of the Internet boom a few years ago, several companies looked at providing broadband or cell phone service from manned or unmanned blimps and aircraft.
So far, none of those plans have fully materialized, but GlobeTel Communications Corp. of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., has signed contracts to provide the nation of Colombia with unmanned communications blimps that would hover 10 to 13 miles up.
In North Dakota, plans call for the service to be sold wholesale to existing wireless carriers. The state government is an "interested observer," said Jerry Fossum, the telecommunications director for the state Information Technology Department.
"It's certainly a possible solution to some of our demographic problems of a lot of space and not a lot of people," Fossum said. "I hope it works."
Just wait 'til one of these puppies breaks loose and the first dolphin washes up on shore after trying to ingest the thing. Cell phones will be outlawed.
Overheard a conversation in the Chandler AZ airport resturant about this a couple of years ago. Sounded a lot like a snake oil sales pitch though. Wonder why it's taken them two years to put up a test?
200 ft. Verizon cell towers are frequently constructed in the middle of the city/town, when one placed on a nearby hill would yield many times greater coverage. It's urban RF design in a rural setting. Doesn't work well at all.
Well, when a former politician is involved I'm usually skeptical because it often indicates some rails are getting greased somewhere.
Wouldn't those balloons travel across a state in a matter of hours, especially if it gets caught in a jet stream/wind stream?
The biggest hurdle would seem to be electrical power.
According to the CEO, ""But it works in the lab."
You ever notice how it always worked in the lab?
No, it always works on paper. It sometimes works in the lab.
It almost never works in the real world.
ML/NJ
Oh ya. GREAT IDEA! No one's gonna get sued when some kid gets thunked on the head by one of these things.
Lets say 100 MPH, a state like S.Dakota the balloon would take 6 hours. If they get altitude control (where they could pick the altitude for slower winds, ) the balloon could be aloft 24 hours over SD (25 MPH).
NOAA put up 100 balloons at the same time twice a day, and it doesn't cause a problem.
Our radio club has done this with HF (shortwave) antennas. Best 80 meter antenna I've ever used (5/8 wave = 50 meter actual length). That is, until the string broke and the balloon got away. Another time we had trouble with high winds tipping it over. Great coverage while they worked though!
No worse than weather ballons.
Generally, weather balloons ascend at about 10 FPS until they stretch to the breaking point; this means that about three hours after release the balloon will likely be ruptured unless the designers use some sort of ballasting system.
That, and the fact that they have to chase them all over hell-and-gone and relaunch them all the time. Just gas for the chase truck would cost many thousands a year.
The idea of powered airships at great height might work. But the technology would be pretty expensive. And actually, if you're going to power the thing, the best would probably be that fixed wing NASA experiment that reached a record height a year or two ago.
NASA's technology would power their airplane with solar cells (it flys so high that clouds never cover it, and it's over the top of thunderstorms). Night flight would be with fuel cells, an interesting idea where the H2O working fluid was regenerated to H2 during the day for use at night. I suppose the O2 is atmospheric (wonder how they keep it from freezing).
You say that as if that would be a bad thing. :)
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