[NZIRF] FW: [gaia] Fwd: Successful Results for Helium Balloon Broadband Test Off Coast of the Azores
William Liu
william.liu at aut.ac.nz
Thu Oct 6 16:24:53 PDT 2016
Good afternoon NZIRFers :)
FYI - there are some interesting discussion in the Global Access to the Internet for All (GAIA)'s mailing list (see conversations below this email), which is triggered by a news about success delivering high-speed internet access powered by helium balloons attached to buoys, vessels, or even windmills:
http://stopthecap.com/2016/10/03/successful-results-helium-balloon-broadband-test-off-coast-azores
If you are interested on GAIA activities, you can find more in the link below.
https://irtf.org/gaia
Cheers Will from raining Auckland
-----Original Message-----
From: gaia [mailto:gaia-bounces at irtf.org] On Behalf Of Paul M. Aoki
Sent: Friday, 7 October 2016 9:22 a.m.
To: gaia at irtf.org
Subject: Re: [gaia] Fwd: Successful Results for Helium Balloon Broadband Test Off Coast of the Azores
elderly ex-military guy is here to remind everybody:
(1) the general idea of "communications constellation of free-floating stratospheric balloons" goes back at least as far as a DARPA-funded study in 1990: <http://www.osti.gov/scitech/servlets/purl/6525013>. i haven't re-read it but i don't think they had any flight control, so the key concern was that the balloons might get trapped in some wind vortex.
it contains this fabulous quote: "direct broadcast TV, mobile communications and private data network demands are growing daily. As the Third World continues to develop, these demands will increase. Much of the Third World will build a communications infrastructure in the next decade and it is possible that free floating vehicles could be used instead of expensive microwave or other terrestrial-supported communications."
from later public reports, they did fly superpressure balloons with radios on them, but not much more.
(2) the US military (again via DARPA) has also been using tethered aerostats as comms relays for at least 10 years. example:
<http://www.military.com/NewContent/0,13190,Defensewatch_072105_Helms,00.html>
On 10/6/2016 8:58 AM, Eric A. BREWER wrote:
> There was serious discussions of balloons for developing regions in 2004
> at Berkeley, led mostly by the late Richard Newton. It led directly to
> work on steerable antennas, intended for that use case, and the
> dissertation of Omar Bakr. I don't think the dissertation actually
> mentions the motivating balloon example at all, but I can probably
> find slides with a balloon picture. (Omar later co-founded a digital
> steerable antenna company, Tarana Wireless, with other Tier students.)
>
> The Berkeley balloon work was never that serious either though; we
> never built a prototype to my knowledge using a balloon, only
> prototypes of antennas.
>
> Google's contribution is the idea of NOT tethering the balloons at
> all, an idea they investigated and rejected, but I don't know all of
> the details of why. Loon balloons float freely and are controlled
> only via ballast, which allows them to pick an altitude as a way to
> choose a direction. Then a centralized control system manages the
> fleet to get mostly continuous coverage. They also had to build a
> non-trivial multi-hop backhaul network to get connectivity *to* the balloons.
>
> On Thu, Oct 6, 2016 at 1:03 AM, Arjuna Sathiaseelan
> <arjuna.sathiaseelan at cl.cam.ac.uk
> <mailto:arjuna.sathiaseelan at cl.cam.ac.uk>> wrote:
>
> Paola -
>
> if it helps I am copying the email you sent to the group couple of
> years ago on this :)
>
>
> Paola Di Maio paola.dimaio at gmail.com
> <mailto:paola.dimaio at gmail.com> via
> <https://support.google.com/mail/answer/1311182?hl=en-GB> ietf.org
> <http://ietf.org>
>
>
> 04/03/2014
>
> to GAIA
>
> During an open/flash discussion at WIreless Summit
> 2012, Barcelona
>
> some of us were talking about rural internet challenges,
>
> I shared a proposal for sending antennas using a ballon
>
> I sketched the baloon on the board , saw some people taking photos
> of the board with the sketches and other ideas
>
> I waited for follow ups from the community but never heard from
> anyone
>
> Next thing I heard tho, was google loon project, but no reference
> to the discussions we had nor my original design
>
> I am sure Google is not in the business of stealing ideas :-)
>
> can someone let me know when was project loon started?
> (if there is any documentation to show that it was started before
> 2012, then I ll lay my claim to rest :-)
>
> thanks!!
>
> PDM
>
> On 4 October 2016 at 11:55, Paola Di Maio <paola.dimaio at gmail.com
> <mailto:paola.dimaio at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>
> That's so great thank you
>
> I devised this idea a few years ago, and share it with peers in
> Barcelona (I think I met Leandro on that occasion?)
> We had a few chats and people took pictures of the sketch I
> made on the blackboard
>
> Its FANTASTIC that it worked
>
> thank you
>
> PDM
>
>
> --
>
> Paola Di Maio
> https://about.me/paoladimaio
>
>
> <https://about.me/paoladimaio?promo=email_sig&utm_source=email_sig&utm
> _medium=external_link&utm_campaign=chrome_ext>
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, Oct 4, 2016 at 2:44 PM, Rui Campos
> <rcampos at inescporto.pt <mailto:rcampos at inescporto.pt>> wrote:
>
> Researchers from Portugal's Institute of Systems and
> Computer Engineering, Technology and Science (INESC TEC)
> report success delivering high-speed internet access powered
> by helium balloons attached to buoys, vessels, or even
> windmills.
> http://stopthecap.com/2016/10/03/successful-results-helium-balloon-broadband-test-off-coast-azores
>
> <http://stopthecap.com/2016/10/03/successful-results-helium-balloon-br
> oadband-test-off-coast-azores/>
--
Paul M. Aoki <aoki at acm.org>
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