Broadband Barrage Balloons

alnya writes "BBC Online are reporting a story of a York-based company called SkyLinc who are floating baloons connected to a fibre optic pole which, they say, can deliver broadband access at "more than double the speed of most broadband services currently available" - whatever that means. Only 18 balloons would be necessarily to blow BT out the water (according to the article). Is this on the horizon?"

Olde Idea

We used to use weather balloons for field day. It's ok, until a good wind kicks up.

Re:Olde Idea

obviously didnt read the article did we?

Problems such as bad weather conditions can be countered by an antenna stabilisation system which would make sure the antenna stays in place regardless of wind, rain or other conditions.

but I left the hot air comment for someone else!

in other news Steve Case [go.com] is no longer the largest windbag in broadband.

Mike

Newest DOS attack

Pellet gun.

Re:RTFA!

I live in York, UK, and I believe the Accuracy International Artic Warfare (Super) Magnum sniper rifle in 7.62mm could bring one down.

Heh heh.

graspee

Re:RTFA!

Mod me down for I am wrong! Apparently the AI arctic warfare in 7.62 has a max range of 800m, and even in larger cal can only go to 1100m. This is the "last 400m" problem in modern telecommunication sniping.

I am now looking into larger calibre rifles, like .50. Will update you when I find one that can go the full 1500m...

graspee

Re:RTFA!

Ah! The Accuracy International AW50, which uses massive .50 cal has a max effective range of 2000m!

I just thought that a British rifle should be used- it's more appropriate; support local industry and all that.

Apologies for splattering this forum with my gun geekiness- you may now mod me into oblivion and beyond.

graspee

Re:RTFA!

The Accuracy International AW50, which uses massive .50 cal has a max effective range of 2000m!

Does effective range account for shooting straight up, or just horizontally?

Surely there must be a British-made SAM that could eliminate all these uncertainties... :-)

Phil (fellow York-dweller)

Re:RTFA!

Actually, the first sniper rifle would be more than adequate for just shooting the tether itself. That way all the hardware attached to the balloon disappears too. Otherwise they can just patch the balloon and send it up again.

Re:RTFA!

Are you taking into account that'd you be firing these rifles straight up rather than simply over land at sea level?

Re:RTFA!

A 150 grain bullet from a 30-06 rifle can reach 9330 feet (2844 meters) when fired straight up. Julian Hatcher, who became the Chief of Ordinance for the U.S. Army in World War II, investigated this and many other ballistics questions.

Re:RTFA!

Well, that may be true, but the ballon itself would be sheilded by the best kevlar composites available, I am assuming multiple redundant layers, and possibly armoring in some places. Trust me, it won't be easy to shoot down, and a 30-06 makes a lot of noise, its federal time and a beat down with the patriot act if you get caught in the US, Nothing to sneeze at. In the UK guns are strictly controlled, very few people have 30-06's. Probably even less in other parts of europe. I'm not saying its impossible, but perhaps the thing is so damn cheap that if you dont tear a big ass hole in it, they just ease it back down to ground in a somewhat controlled manner, put up a spare, and patch the blimp you shot... the actual gondola, where the communications equipment seems to be housed, looks like it could be heavily sheilded to me. That would be tough to destroy, the blimp itself is merely a floatation device, and looks like it costs very little to make, even a kevlar reinforced version like the one I described. Also... I'm guessing the would have dummy/redundant blimps. Multiple shots from a 30-06 will attract everyone within a 5 mile radius. Good luck.

I doubt it!

You need a good grounding in practical aeronautics, like weight. I doubt very much these balloons would have any kevlar armor. Keerist, a balloon is a huge thing! The German balloons of WW I were military weapons going in harm's way and had no armor, do you really think anyone is going to armor a com balloon where every penny counts?

They may well compartmentalize the bag, but all that will mean is that it has to come down for repair when the bag is peirced, and they will be able to do that under some kind of graceful degradation control. Still a DoS. A mission kill doesn't necesarily mean destruction.

No, the communication gondola won't be shielded. Weight, weight, weight. There's a reason airplanes use so much expensive equipment and materials, they want to save weight, and as expensive as that is, it's cheaper than a bigger engine and wings, or bag in this case.

DoS attack at 0 feet and 0 range!

Yes, no need for high powered weapons when you apply the Black & Decker 4 1/2" Angle Grinder [blackanddecker.com] directly to the tether!!

Alright, alright, you do actually have to be inside the mooring compound to do it but if you are prepared to go running round the English countryside with large, high-powered rifles, this should be small-fry! ;)

baloony

this story is just a load of hot air

balloon concept

Is this on the horizon?

No, it's overhead.

Not worth it...

I have to say...I've got DSL. Would I pay $10 more for twice the speed? Nope. I, like most people, I think, divide expectations into two categories: instant and "a while". I expect page loads to be instant, and I expect a video I'm downloading to take "a while". DSL delivers on these. So basically, the improvement only comes in "a while".

In that "a while", I go off and do other things, perhaps (gasp!) even leaving the computer for a while. That that will take 5 mintues rather than 10, or 30 seconds rather than a minute delivers very little value to me, and I think "good enough" might really crowd out "best" here.

Definitely worth it

People will subscribe to this for the exact same reason you subscribe to DSL. Remember on 56k when web pages were "instant", "a while" was for music (if you're lucky), and video was "read war and peace and see if the stream is done downloading"? $10 more/month is definitely worth double bandwidth.

Re:Not worth it...

I don't speak for this particular company, but I would guess that you are not their target audience. They are trying to solve the last mile problem for people that can't get DSL at present - i.e., those that are too far from an exchange, or those that live in an area whose broadband demands are sufficiently small that the local exchange isn't going to get upgraded, or whose existing cable infrastructure won't handle a DSL signal.

This is no small problem. I live in a residential area in a populous state capital (>1 million residents), yet I can't get DSL because my local phone infrastructure doesn't support it. An airborne solution gets around this limitation; I just need to put an antenna on my roof. I would give my right arm for this kind of solution where I live. As it is, I'm limited to a 56k dialup.

Russ %-)

The anywhere wireless is what sells me

I'd definitely tend to agree with you. Our cable service is certainly 'good enough' for my web browsing and downloading needs.

However I think the real killer here is the wireless aspect. Imagine paying for one broadband account that you can use anywhere sans wires. For me I'd plunk down the extra $10 without a second thought.

regards,
Nik

donald duck

Biggest problem I see; these balloons are filled with helium, when they use a pipe to channel the voices thru these things, won't they come back sounding like that nervous duck? I dunno, IANAE (engineer)

RFC 1149

Ahh, the upgrade to RFC 1149 [ietf.org] is here at last.

Will the air-ships be

Zeppelin-NT [zeppelin-nt.com] ?

Important Reward!

We'll reward 50,000$ anyone who shoots those evil pirate balloons!

Remember: When you are download MP3, you are downloading COMMUNISM !!!

-- This message is brought to you by the RIAA/MPAA.

whats stopping it?

from the article:
The technology behind the idea has been around for years, with the US Government operating several such aerostats as communication systems on its borders and the US military employing similar technology for about 50 years.

so, it seems to be pretty workable, and according to the article its not to expensive. so whats the reason this isn't already wildly addapted? i didn't see any problems mentioned in the article

If protecting against the weather is possible....

Ok,just to stop silly pellet gun comments... it would take one that could shoot 1.5km accurately (according to article that is how high they are and for the metrically impaired that's just under a mile), so that would be one nifty pellet gun. But it wouldn't suprise me in one such toy weapon existed in the US....

The article only mentions the opportunity for UK coverage but what about countries where laying fiber/cable would be a huge undertaking. 3rd World contries could certainly benefit from this kind of technology, if it works as well as they say it does. Wiring countries without the usual western infrastructure might be much more cost effective with this approach. Though I am not holding my breath on this... though the article does mention that the US military uses things like these...

Re:If protecting against the weather is possible..

One-word question:

Airplanes?

That's what I was thinking as I read this article. Fortunately most commercial airplanes fly well above 1.5km, just make sure you don't put these balloons near an airport. General aviation planes (that is, small private planes, not commercial airliners) often fly much lower, and these balloons would be a serious safety threat for them. The balloons would need to be brightly marked and lighted, and there presence would need to be depicted on aeronautical charts. Assuming that's done, however, and assuming there are not so many of them that flying at 1.5km or below becomes an obstacle course, I think it would be okay. If they put VOR transmitters (something pilots use for navigation) in the balloons, they could actually benefit pilots.

Of course, the main benefit as far as internet access goes is to be able to reach rural areas. My guess is that the speed claims would not hold true in real usage, and concerns about privacy and security would be significant. For those in rural areas that have little other choice, this could be one of the few choices they have.

Re:If protecting against the weather is possible..

"A 1999 Cessna Skyhawk SP cruises at 14,000 feet"

IAAP and FWIW those altitudes are service ceilings. In other words it's the maximum altitude the airplane can effectively achieve. In practice general aviation aircraft almost never go that high (in fact, above 12,500 ft. FAA regulations require the use of supplemental oxygen). Normal cruising altitudes for light aircraft are typically between 2000-9000 ft, putting these balloons right in the airspace GA planes fly.

It doesn't really matter though, since their location will appear on charts so pilots can avoid them. The fact is, at least in the US, there are all sorts of towers, mountains, and whatnot that poke up high enough to be a potential hazard. But since they are stationary and their locations well known, they do not pose an undue threat. I am far more concerend about other airplanes than fixed obstacles. They are small and they move. But the sky is a very big place, and due diligence applied to what's going on outside of the cockpit will help ensure your safety.

Re:If protecting against the weather is possible..

Neglecting air resistance (hah!) .50 BMG [mst2-vietnam.info] bullets are about 700 grains or 0.045 kg. Muzzle velocity is around 1000 m/s, for kinetic energy of 22500 J. This implies a .50 BMG bullet could reach an altitude of 51,000 m maximum (at which point it would have zero velocity). But of course, you can't neglect air resistance, especially with fast-moving objects as it increases faster than linearly with velocity.

I've seen a study [www.mega.nu] looking at the maximum trajectory of .50 BMG for surface-to-surface use, which is generally around 25,000 feet surface range and maximum height of around 8000 feet. At maximum height, horitzontal velocity is down to 100 m/s.

Another study [sprynet.com] has shown that rifle bullets tend to reach a maximum altitude of about 9000 feet.

Finally, here [cfis.org] there is a quote about an Army firing table for the Browning M2 with .50 BMG for anti-aircraft use, which tops out at 7500 feet altitude (but within 400 yards horizontal distance).

So extrapolating, I think it is safe to say that .50 BMG will generally not reach higher than 10,000 feet, and will probably be fairly useless in engaging targets much more than 7500 feet high.

So how do they plan to accomplish this??

What is more, it is would not slow down as more and more people use the service which is the case with DSL - broadband via the phone line.

finally, infinite bandwidth...on another note... I'm off to go play with my perpetual motion machine...

Look, the Broadband Blimp!!!

BAM!!!

I don't believe he fell for that one.

What?

From the article: What is more, it is would not slow down as more and more people use the service which is the case with DSL - broadband via the phone line. Huh? I fail to see how just 18 base stations would provide total UK coverage and at the same time be able to provide, say, 2Mbps up and down to all customers at the same time. The United Kingdom has a lot of people in it, last I checked. And DSL only slows down if the ISP's resources are over-provisioned from their point up. Cable is the one where resources are over-provisioned at the last-mile and up. Or does DSL somehow work different in the UK?

Also, although the article does address the issue of weather, I'd assume that performance must decrease somewhat during an electrical storm as more errors are introduced into the bitstream.

Security

I doubt the military will be using them - it's an awfully easy target. Not open to a pellet gun attack, obviously, but perhaps to air-to-ground missile attack.

I assume that eavesdropping would have to be done at their altitude? Or could you listen in on unencrypted communication from wherever you could stick an antenna?

Perhaps the existing ground level wiring will make a nice backup for customers that want this sort of security.

"baloons"

baloons

Aaaaaarrrrrgggggghhhhh!

On the horizon?

I think the goal for this is to be above the horizon.

It's an interesting idea though.

security...

ah yes, our good friend security would be left in the dust... wireless is inherently insecure, so as long as people are comfortable with it, i guess itll do fine.

What will the CAA say?

Well, the C.A.A. [caa.co.uk] has approved 2 of these sites in Yorkshire with cables extending to 1500m (approx 5000ft AGL).

Now, this is all very good and well until they decide to apply for licences in high aviation traffic areas say: West of the Pennines or anywhere within 75miles of Manchester Airport.

It seems unlikely that the licences would be granted as these things don't just require "Danger-Area" status but a complete DNF area status for serveral miles around. With the U.K. having very little airspace available below the 'airways', this could get to be a major hassle for G/A and Military aviation.

Note: For those of you not in the UK, airspace below the 'airways' is largely populated by Aerodrome Traffic Zones and MATZ due to the small land-mass and (relatively) high density of major airports.

Latency?

They state bandwidth, but would anyone care to guess what kind of latency we would be looking at? I know satellite connections have too high a latency for games, but then again they are miles up...

Re:Latency?

The latency would be trivial. Satellite internet feeds have latency because, the geostationary satellites are about 23,000 miles away. With the speed of light being 186,000 miles per second, this distance adds up.

Consider this - your request for a webpage originates on your desk. Goes up to the bird - there's 23,000 miles. Goes from the bird to wherever your sat ISP's switchgear is, there's another 23,000 miles (more, actually, depending on relative locations on the ground, a bunch of trig, and more math than this point warrants). Great, now your request is back on a land-based connection to the internet. You'll have the normal routing from there, to the host system.

At this point, the HTML you requested will get sent back to your ISP's gear, sent up to the bird (a third 23,000 mile trip), and down to your system (a fourth trip). We're at 92,000 miles, and all you have is the HTML, which tells your browser which objects to go fetch (graphics, style sheets, and so on). So, a single packet takes roughly 1/2 second just in space, speed of light transit time; let alone the rest of the ground and server-based waits.

Contrast this to the balloon, where it's about a mile up. Delay there will be 1/186,000ths of a second each trip.

So, yes, they both have a delay, we're talking many orders of magnitude in difference. Measureable, maybe. Noticable? Nope.

99 Luft Ballons

[Obligatory Critic Reference] From "Red Balloon 2 -- The Balloon's REVENGE":

Terrorist: "One more step and the red balloon becomes the dead balloon."

[Scared kid releases baloon]

Terrorist: "How did I not see that coming..."

Cell phone,

so, they might as well throw in a few cell phone antennas while they are at it. Oh and a few of those video surveillance cameras that they are so fond of over there.

Gives a new meaing to...

networks crashing. Oh the humanity!

This is just fixed wireless

There's really nothing new here except the idea of using balloons. Wireless Internet has been available for a while now. The biggest flops so far have been Metricom (the original incarnation of the Ricochet Internet service) and Sprint Broadband Direct.

I had Metricom/Ricochet while I was in college. The Metricom radios, about the size of shoeboxes (1/1000 of a VW Beetle), were mounted on utility poles every kilometer or so. It was a great technology that was mostly killed by incompetent management, high deployment cost, and irrelevance as the rest of the world went from dial-up to DSL/cable. The bandwidth was pretty good for its day, but its latency sucked (typically 400ms minimum).

My dad got Sprint Broadband Direct after ditching DSL. Our DSL was unreliable since our house was too far from Pac Bell's switch box. Also, there is no cable modem service available in our area. So we turned to Sprint, which serves the San Francisco Bay Area through a tower in the Fremont Hills, about 50 km away. A Sprint technician came and installed a small dish antenna on our roof, and permanently aimed it at the tower.

We have been dissatisfied with Sprint Broadband Direct because:

• The latency sucks (400ms average)
• Lots of dropped packets, which I believe are due to the wireless link (10% typical, and worse when foggy)

The combination of those two factors make SSH use unbearable. We were stuck with it because Sprint requires a 1-year committment to offset the cost of installation.

The Sprint service isn't for everyone, since it requires a clear line of sight to the tower on the hill, and the right to mount an antenna on the roof. Combined with the high cost of deployment, these drawbacks have forced Sprint to deprecate the service [sprintbroadband.com].

The SkyLinc system seems to be most like Sprint's. The elevation of the balloons will be an advantage (probably negated by the fact that the antennas are not exactly stationary), but they'll have to overcome the same difficulties that have plagued previous systems.

Stormy Weather...

I doubt this would hold up in very windy and/or stormy weather. A baloon is hardly fail safe, especially considering its vulnerability to weather.

Using advanced handwave technology.

A few optimistic points do stick out:

What is more, it is would not slow down as more and more people use the service...

Infinite capacity?

For people interested in uploading as well as downloading, it will provide the same speeds in both directions.

Twice as infinite!

Problems such as bad weather conditions can be countered by an antenna stabilisation system which would make sure the antenna stays in place regardless of wind, rain or other conditions.

The antenna is hanging from a tethered balloon. Unsurprisingly, the magic means of keeping it from bobbing about is not discussed in detail.

Going completely unaddressed is the question of what the user's ground station would look like. Presumably you'd need a small dish with line-of-sight to the balloon to receive; I don't know what kind of transmitter you'd be looking at.

Air traffic biggest concern

The biggest problem with high-altitude tethered aerostats is that the tether is invisible to aircraft. Typically, they aren't even lit. And, of course, the balloons move with the wind somewhat, so you can't even be sure what location to avoid. Therefore, you'd have to have a pretty wide area to avoid.

That said, the US has several tethered aerostats along its southern border [noaa.gov], used to monitor weather, to check for low-flying smugglers and to broadcast propaganda to Cuba. [lockheedmartin.com] The internation border is, of course, an area with strict flying restrictions already, so it isn't too much of a burden.

Unfortunately, these balloons in England are planned (perhaps that's too strong a word. Shilled?) to be in the middle of fairly populated and high-traffic areas. Cordoning off all of these areas would be a problem, and unlikely to be 100% successful. Right now, people violate airspace accidentally all the time -- but it's usually not that big a deal -- it's just air. Running into one of these tethers would likely be a big deal -- you'd probably lose both the plane and the balloon.

Perhaps the balloons could be flown far higher somewhat offshore? The US flies its aerostats at 50,000 ft (about 16 km). From that altitude, the amount of ground area seen by the balloon would be almost 100x as great. Private planes typically don't fly very far offshore, so the risk of hitting the tether would be lower -- and in the case that there is a collision the wreakage would fall into the sea instead of a city.

Perhaps GPS will solve this problem. If all private planes had perfect GPS systems with all airspaces clearly marked and rigged to alarms, then this might work smoothly with the current plan. You'd probably have to legislate that all planes have certificated (or whatever the term is in England) GPS's -- but they would be broadly useful devices in any case.

Anyway, in the end, the idea of flying relays has been promoted innumerable times -- and it never happens. Cable is, in the end, cheaper, faster, more reliable, and safer. It's not as sexy as this system [angeltechnologies.com] (although sexiness is in the eye of the beholder -- or should I say stockholder) but it gets the job done.

thad

More details?

Can anyone shed more light on how exactly this works?

1) The article mentions putting the ballon up 1.5k, and tethering it, yet it apparently remains static in strong breeze. The photo didn't seem to show any thrusters or reaction control devices, so how do they plan on keeping the thing steady? Are there lots of tethers in all directions? Or is "steady" a relative term, and the balloon can float around on the end of one tether without affecting service?

2) They say they only need 18 to cover the whole of Britain, in 2000 sqm chunks; this may be geographically true, but how many users get access within that chunk? The same area would have 2000 Mobile phone base stations, yet these easily get maxxed out if too many people want to make a call. The balloon approach dramatically reduces the number of base stations. How does the ballon handle 2000 times as many simultaneous bidirectional signals and not get maxxed out?

Russ %-)

The balloon/weather is the only issue

My,

Broadband is supplied via microwave from about 20 miles away and it works pretty good. I have a pizza box sized antenna on my roof and a cable extending to a cable modem like box. From there it is purely regular TCP/IP.

On the other end my understanding is that they have an array of transmitters on one big pole at the top of a mountain. Each transmitter broadcasts to a certain swath of the coverage area.

Now substitute the mountain with a balloon and you have essentially the same system.

But, as has been mentioned before, what about the weather and aviation issues (I could just see these balloons becoming prime targets for lunatic suicidal pilots).

If the signal could be transmitted from already existing cell phone towers without line-of-sight issues it seems that that would be a far preferable way to approach the problem.

My broadband setup proves that laying cable is just lame.

Has anybody ever looked at the manual for a police scanner? Did you notice how much spectrum is provided to railways, forestry service, etc. etc.? And did you try to listen in on a railway conversation? I programmed my scanner to pick up the railroads and I heard nothing from them for about a month. I want some of that spectrum!

shoot the cable not the baloon

One could easily shoot the cable rather than the baloon. You could walk up to it Matrix style, yell dodge this, and shoot, or sit back a couple hundred yards w/ a bag of peanuts and a rifle for the afternoon.

obligatory pun

Is this on the horizon

No, it's overhead.

Finally

As someone who lives in a low-density area of the UK, I really hope this floats. BT and Blueyonder (UK cable company) will never roll our broadband to this area because it wouldn't be profitable.

So if it does work

ok lets assume its not going to be easy to shoot these down (well the same level of difficulty as running into an exchange and shooting all the equipment). Lets also assume that 18 of these will be able to give enough bandwidth for the whole country, even if one fails from the odd lightning strike/plane hit/microsoft-based on board system crash. And maybe people will not mind seeing these things up (it will just look like a blimp thats not going anywhere - like in ms flight sim;) and lets also assume, just for the sake of it, that this whole thing will work even in bad weather and they'll manage to get the funding for it and the spectrum and that no-one will be able to jam it- Assuming all that is ok: erm no nevermind.

Another attack on GA

The UK isn't the USA, you know - there's hardly any unrestricted airspace round here, and these things will add another set of hazards.

Soon there'll be nowhere left to fly ...

Better solutions.

What problem is this supposed to address ?

Remember, we already have 100% coverage for UHF television, from a large number of extremely tall towers. If it was simply a matter of getting internet transceivers up high, the infrastructure already exists to do it.

But it isn't.

Old Idea: Proposed in the US in 1997...

Al Haig's company (yes, he really is In Charge) Sky Station [skystation.com] has been talking about this for years now. Might sound a bit hokey, but it's just an extension of the Aerostat technology that's been used for the past decade to provide better radar coverage for the Gulf of Mexico. And, it's one heck of a lot cheaper to put up another balloon to replace a failure than to launch another satellite...

If you want affordable Broadband , read this

The broadband, spectrum, communications problem in this country is due to incompetent government. The local governments are the main cause of the cable broadband and pricing problem. They only care more about wringing every cent from the Renting of the public cable lines so we get these ridiculous prices for broadband and cable tv.

The Local and Fed governments philosophy on managing and taxing of the radio spectrum and cable lines by selling to the highest bidder cable co. or wireless phone com. need to stop. The cable networks(public owned sections) should be gov owned and not privately run as in Municipal cable/broadband.

If there is a policy of renting the public owned lines to the cable company then it should go to the cable company with the best product for the best price(most affordable packages with broadband) and allowing individual public to pick and choose from a list of what options they want. As for the radio spectrum, the same policy should be in effect. Also Stop the selling our spectrum to the highest bidder. That only drives up the prices for all cellphones or future tech that relies on the radio spectrum. And also why is there stupid taxation of something we rely on for communication? Should we tax all speech ?

Sorry to say this but broadband is not expensive as some of you think. The cable and phone companies have ZERO competition thanks to CLUSTERFUCK FCC ZAR POWELL(brother of colin).

This Ideas been Floated Around Befor

Weather it would work or not is still up in the air. Air Traffic concerns cloud the issue. These current marketers appear to be filled with hot air. And if a project actully flies, I bet the company that hits the ground first will have a monopoly. They will see that the skys the limit on profits, and the rates they charge will ballon. I do believe that at least in the US, any real attempt to do this will become a lightning rod for counterversy.