Like guns, cell phones are inanimate objects...tools. It's the mentality of the user that makes them a good or bad thing. On a side note, Stephen King's new book is a pretty good read....
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."
Like guns, cell phones are inanimate objects...tools. It's the mentality of the user that makes them a good or bad thing. On a side note, Stephen King's new book is a pretty good read....
Weather balloons wind up above 60,000 ft., I think. Notice must be given prior to launch. 60,000 ft isn't much of a threat to me, but it's probably not too useful to the cellphone folks. What's launched over North Dakota would soon be over Michigan at that altitude.
ML/NJ
The article says they'll be twenty miles above the earth, in the statosphere.
That's 105,600 feet, 40K higher than weather balloons.
I believe the stratosphere is above the jet stream, but I don't really know.
Also, jet streams are a bit like rivers in the sky. They're not everywhere at the same time and are somewhat predictable.
I missed that. I wonder what good they can do up there.
ML/NJ
Hence my original wonder about where they'll get the juice to run the things for any length of time at that distance and with current cell wavelengths.
Need a radio engineer to englighten us.
Calling Marconi.
"Wonder why it's taken them two years to put up a test?"
Probably because the FAA told them to take their baloons and stuff them where the sun doesn't shine.
When they were assending or decending by parachute they would be a teriffic hazard to aircraft, especially prop planes, and they wouldn't be visible on radar.
" I wonder what good they can do up there"
They are too late to get into the game, sometime later this year there is supposed to be a satalite cell service that is price comparative with existing services that will give nation wide coverage at no additional cost.
they are supposedly working with it for highway patrol and hospitals and won't solicit the public until they have all the bugs worked out. Apparently they have had some trouble with interfering with other communications equipment.
On its trip to the stratosphere - wouldn't these balloons pass through the jet stream -- where I've noticed West to East wind speeds greater than 300 mph. This would move the balloon across the state at a speed a lot greater than the claimed 30 mph...
Semper Fi
NMD, can you enlighten us here?
North Dakota! It'd never make it to the coast.
Unless a balloon is thethered its going to blow away, even 20 miles up. There is no way to achieve geo-synchronous orbit with a free floating balloon, its going to go wherever the winds take it.....I don't see how this is a practical alternative to standard cellular operation?
Me either - and since it eats into my, excuse me OUR retirement, I don't think I like it one bit!
ALLEGEDLY, the wind is fairly slow that high.
Yes, it was at field day that we made our balloon antennas. Tethered still blows over, but affords some protection against losing the balloon.
The year we lost the balloon (actually a big cluster of balloons) was 2002, i.e., the next field day after 9/11, when all military and every other fed. agency was still on full alert. Our club prez learned from a neighbor the next week that the air national guard was mobilized to check out the unidentified object flying over northern [name deleted] county.
The Japanese balloon bombs used in WWII were released from the Island of Honshu and were designed to travel 5,000 miles...they were found as far east as Michigan. I would imagine the materials used for the cell phone balloons would be somewhat more sophisticated and durable than those employed by the Japanese over 60 years ago...
Such baloon-carried explosives were the only (reported) casualties on the US mainland during WWII, I believe.
Family camping in the woods in California went and looked at one.
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