Airship to provide blanket wireless services
SansWire Networks (such a clever name eh?) is demonstrating its "Stratellite" technolgy later on this week. Bad names aside, the concept is interesting and the mock-up looks like a whale, which bodes well for business (but gets serious nerd points with the Final Fantasy crowd). They plan on using "airships" (not balloons or blimps, oh no!) 13 miles up as wireless transmission platforms. It's pretty much the same principle as communications satellites, with many of the same line-of-sight benefits only lower, cheaper, and easier to maintain. Each airship will use GPS to maintain a fixed position and be able to cover 300,000 square miles with wireless broadband, cellular, 3G/4G mobile, MMDS, paging, fixed wireless telephony, and HDTV goodness. Perhaps some carriers (we're not naming any names) should consider getting a couple for New York until they sort themselves out this summer.
