Broadband from a balloon

NEWS A UK airship company is planning to unveil a concept model for the first ever telecommunications airship. Bedford-based airship builders the Advanced Technologies Group, is to float the concept of StratSat, a combined mobile phone base station and communications platform. The ship could be used for broadband internet, digital TV and radio and surveillance equipment. Hovering at 60,000 to 65,000 feet, the ship would be powered by a combination of diesel and solar power. A one tenth scale version was flown on Friday night in a secret demo. ATG believes that 19 such airships could provide 99.9 per cent coverage of the UK, replacing 4,000 second generation or 10,000 third generation mobile phones, the Financial Times reported. However, Niall Rudd, broadband analyst at Schema, said broadband in a balloon may offer a number of advantages. He told silicon.com: "They can support a massive communication payloads way in excess of satellites. They sit very much closer to cities than satellites so there is no signal delay, and customers only need small antennas with lower power requirements." He added: "However, it is unproven stuff. Operational reliability issues and novelty problems must be overcome. There should be applications - post-disaster communications
infrastructure, for example - but will operators want to rely on something like this
for more than a stop gap service, at least for time being?" The group is hoping to raise $200m, possibly through an IPO, to fund production of the first two StratSat ships by 2003, the FT said.