Google Interested in Wireless Bandwidth Balloons

An anonymous reader writes "Google is reportedly looking into investing in or buying a company called Space Data, which provides wireless voice and data services to remote areas with a fleet of weather balloons fitted with transceivers." My mind is sorta tripping over how something like this could work, but I gotta admit that the idea is really cool.

Re:Rural area

[KublaiKhan]

If they're the same weather balloons that the NOAA folks use, they float well above commercial air traffic lanes.

Helium Shortage

[Ilan Volow]

I wonder how Google plans to deal with the rising cost of helium?

http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/01/14/0219246&from=rss [slashdot.org]

Re:Only a 24-hour lifespan?

[Cyberax]

Weather balloons do not 'pop' like common toy balloons.

If you make a tear in balloons fabric - it will slowly descend as the helium inside the balloon leaks.

Of course, if you tear balloon apart - it will fall lake a lead weight. But it's rather hard to do.

Re:Why not tethered?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope - tethering is a non-starter.

If you tether the balloon, the altitude has to be very low or else the cable would be a hazard to aircraft. The whole idea is to put these up so high that they are well out of the way of air traffic. Also, the higher you go, the bigger the area you can cover.

Think of these as cheap, low altitude satellites.

Re:Only a 24-hour lifespan?

[redxxx]

well, that and the whole being able to keep a HALE on station. Balloons get pushed around by the wind, so even if they stayed afloat, they would end up where they were you didn't need them.

Whatever colour, we're screwed

[TheEmptySet]

The colour of the balloons is just an artefact of the translation from the song's original German where they were just "99 Luftballons" (actually the German lyrics tell a much better story as the translation changes a lot). So the world is over whatever colour they make them.

Re:Only a 24-hour lifespan?

[Zach978]

Wall Street Journal has a much more complete article [wsj.com] about these balloons, and a video.

According to the article:

The electronic gear they carry, encased in a small Styrofoam box, then drifts gently back to earth on tiny parachutes.
[..]
While the balloons are cheap and disposable at $50 a pop, the transceivers they carry are worth about $1,500. Once a transceiver is released from its balloon to parachute back to earth, there's no way to predict where it will land. So Space Data has hired 20 hobbyists with GPS devices to track them down.

Re:Why not tethered?

[Yarrr]

Aircraft under VFR flight rules do fly hither and yon, where ever they want (in class G airspace) and flight plans are not always required or even need to be approved. Thats just how SAR finds you when you have an "unplanned landing". There is no requirement for contact with ATC, and you can fly as low as 500 feet AGL, and even lower if the weather is closing in. Sending up 2-3 balloons a day would not be a big deal but making a mesh network of weather balloons, say 20 a day would cause a hazard. Maybe going as far as switching a large area to restricted airspace. Which would require printing of new maps/NOTAMS.

Re:Only a 24-hour lifespan?

[dargaud]

If you make a tear in balloons fabric - it will slowly descend as the helium inside the balloon leaks.

No.

I spent a year launching weather balloons from Antarctica [gdargaud.net]. They take about one hour to reach 20~30km altitude, then the latex tears up (remember, as the pressure decreases, the volume increases) and the plummet to the ground in less then 10 minutes. In rare cases what's left of the latex will form a parachute shape and they will drop slower.

If you fill them more, they go up faster and blow up earlier (as the latex reaches its maximum thinness earlier). If you underfill them, you get less buoyancy [wikipedia.org], and they can float for a long time if they don't go up to where they'll pop, which is probably what you want here.

But I have to remind you that:

• latex is expensive (at least for daily balloon launches, you are OK with your S&M fantasies).
• helium is very expensive and world quantities are limited and will run out before petroleum does.
• a standard weather balloon can lift only about 200 grams, which pretty much limits the quantity of battery and thus the wifi power range you can carry.

All that being said I think it's a neat idea, but not as much as solar powered ultra-light drones.

Re:Why?

[westlake]

I believe they are attempting to continue to be seen as the "good" company where as many tech-oriented folks look at Microsoft as the "bad" company.

Microsoft is underwriting the development and launch of a communications satellite for Africa. Cameroon: Microsoft Partners With Schools for IT Development [allafrica.com] You can not be more "out there" than that.

Solved Problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

uh, why would this be better?

assuming you want to limit yourself to line of site RF
(for a bunch of reasons) then what's wrong with ground based
towers?

Depending on wind/weather issues, I would think you could
even build structures out of wood.

Guyed towers can reduce the steel requirements a lot though,
with sections being able to be carried by humans or animals.
100 ft guyed towers are pretty cheap to erect. Probably less
than $5000. Don't need much concrete either.

Or take advantage of topography (hills)

Here's an analysis of height requirements vs distance
(frenel distance issues etc)
http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_memoranda/RM3762/RM3762.chap5.html [rand.org]

100 ft tower can probably get you a 20 mile link at 5Ghz no problem.
10 of them to go 200 miles. ..plus you can mount all
your local repeaters.

Re:Cost Analysis

[aaarrrgggh]

From the WSJ article, the shoebox is $1,500, launch is $50 (they use H2 rather than He), and recovery $100. They pay farmers to launch them and adventurers to recover them, included in that cost. With 5% mortality, the cost per balloon is $225, or cost per year $82k. Since the boxes are so cheap, they can distribute 20-30 to different farmers to launch when requested. The recovery is aided by GPS coordinates, but I will admit it wouldn't be worth $100 to me to go out and find one.

The coverage should be ~50 mile radius.

To build a base station to do the same thing you would need at least a 300' mast and microwave links between them, plus you have to lease the ground. I don't think you can pull it off with less than a 3-year payback; you also need more prime airwaves.