SkyLinc's Broadband Via Balloons
Posted: 26th May, 2003 By: MarkJ
York-based SkyLinc is the latest company to investigate the possibility of using floating base stations, which hang roughly 1.5km above the surface of the Earth (on balloons), to construct a broadband network:
SkyLinc's Libra (Low Cost Integrated Radio Access) system offers a solution to the age-old problem of how to get broadband out affordably to the whole of the UK.
Just 18 base stations would provide total UK coverage, from densely populated towns to the remotest cottage in the Scottish Highlands.
The system works by floating a helium-filled envelope in the air, which is held stationary and fed signals via a fibre optic pole. Such a system would offer net access at more than double the speed of most broadband services currently available.
While the BBC News Online item is interesting, we've heard of such ideas before and have yet to see anything solid enter the public market.
Never the less SkyLinc hopes to have commercial contracts in place by the end of this year; good luck to them, but we won't be holding our breath.
SkyLinc's Libra (Low Cost Integrated Radio Access) system offers a solution to the age-old problem of how to get broadband out affordably to the whole of the UK.
Just 18 base stations would provide total UK coverage, from densely populated towns to the remotest cottage in the Scottish Highlands.
The system works by floating a helium-filled envelope in the air, which is held stationary and fed signals via a fibre optic pole. Such a system would offer net access at more than double the speed of most broadband services currently available.
While the BBC News Online item is interesting, we've heard of such ideas before and have yet to see anything solid enter the public market.
Never the less SkyLinc hopes to have commercial contracts in place by the end of this year; good luck to them, but we won't be holding our breath.
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