Internet blimps will soon be sent to sky for better internet access

Many areas of the world do not have access to internet and in order to reduce this, researchers have decided to send internet blimps up in the sky.

A startup Altaeros, backed up by SoftBank, plans to send up helium-filled blimps in the sky that would be tethered to the ground and would float at around 800-850ft, six to eight times higher than an average cell phone tower. These airships are being called ‘SuperTower’ internet blimps.

The company believes that each of the blimps can cover around 10,000sq.km. of space, which is equal to the area 20-30 ground-based internet towers could cover. Also, the SuperTower is faster and cheaper to install as compared to the regular cell sites. What’s more is that these towers are completely autonomous, which makes them more durable, reliable and cost-effective than other technologies.

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As Futurism explains, these blimps function better than the normal cell towers. At high altitudes, the wireless signals are able to reach out to more people. The blimps are incorporated with multiple-in/multiple-out radio units so that the users do not to share a single signal. Different internet providers can also join the SuperTower in order to enhance their wireless LTE reach.

These blimps can provide internet speeds not only for emails or texts, but even for video streaming. These can resist wind speeds more than 160km/h and also heavy precipitation. Altaeros aims to make these blimps available within this year. However, when damaged, or require updates, the whole network would be disconnected.

Moreover, as Motherboard reports, this is not the first time a company has used internet balloons. Google’s parent company Alphabet launched Project Loon that was successfully used as emergency internet cell sites after Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico; the project gave internet access to over 200,000 Puerto Ricans. Recently, Elon Musk’s SpaceX too launched two satellites in space to provide global internet.

Nonetheless, these projects would prove to be beneficial as half of the world’s population still does not have any internet access and fiber optic cables or building new cell towers are expensive.