If this doesn’t seem the most far fetched idea you’ve heard for a while, you better send me some of what you’re smoking. Let me paint a picture, close your eyes and imagine a vast network of balloons, tethered together somehow, all carrying wireless receivers and transmitters, creating an accessible network that you can utilise for all of your mobile needs. Now they may only be tethered wirelessly, so you wont have to change your commuting preferences, for fear of your plane getting caught up in Google’s network, but does this seem like "Pie in the sky" [cough], or a viable networking solution?

Jerry Knoblach wants to bring wireless service to millions of rural Americans. His plan: Beam it down from balloons hovering at the edge of space.

Jerry’s company, Space Data Corp, wants to create a network powered by weather balloons floating in the stratosphere, and apparently it’s caught the eye of the GoogMeister.

Space Data Corp targets areas without existing internet access, such as rural areas and highways, providing wireless and internet services to truckers and rural folk. The company currently launches 20 balloons a day, and a single balloon can service an area equivalent to 40 cell phone towers.

The balloons cost $50, however the transceivers attached to them cost $1500, but parachute back to the earth once the balloon is no longer in service.

Does this work for you?

via WSJ

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