Did the dream of being able to call anyone anywhere on the planet die with Iridium? After investing billions of dollars and only getting a few hundred subscribers Iridium, which was a consortium that included Motorola, went bankrupt. The 66 satellites in low earth orbit, that they launched, are going to be brought down. Will we ever see truly global communications in the way that Iridium had promised?
I hope so. This month’s issue of Discover talks about, of all things, airships. Blimps!
The idea is to send them up as “cell towers” high and above major cities across the world, where little-to-no interference to enable clear cellular calls just about everywhere. They’re inexpensive and a great floating billboard. If I had money, I’d invest in Zepplin, the leader in this new idea.
There’s another global (or aspiring to be) satellite system, Globalstar. However, it’s apparently not doing so well, as this article indicates, and may follow Iridium’s star-crossed trajectory.
Wrath mentioned using airships as platforms for cellular phone relay stations – I’ve heard of the same thing being done with new ultra-light aircraft, powered by solar cells and capable of staying aloft 6 months on end.
I saw the things about blimps, and I had heard about the solar powered aircraft. I can see these things being very practicle solutions in urban locations, but are these useful in the deepest Amazon? It seems that you could only get true global coverage from space.
What the hell are you doing in the Amazon? With a cell phone? A 2-way water-proof radio is what you need, dude.
Blimps?
In urban areas, the problem is not that phones can’t see a cell site, but that there are often too few cell sites available for peak traffic demands. A blimp would not help this; the answer is to subdivide cell sites or otherwise increase capacity.
In a rural or even suburban environment, I can’t imagine a blimp seeing enough cell traffic to justify the high capital costs.
Maybe I can see a small fleet of blimps to handle things short-term things like natural disasters that take out a lot of cell sites, sporting events or other large gatherings where cell traffic spikes unnaturally for a short time and the like. But a permanent fleet over a city or some rural village? No way. Rooftop space is not that expensive, especially in this age of shared towers.
The problem with satellites, at least so far, is that just about everywhere there is demand for mobile communications, there already exist one or more cell-phone companies which offer more reliable service at a lower price. The “global traveler” market and people who need a cell-phone in the oilfields of Uzbekistan is pretty small, and satellite constellations are pretty expensive.
Far be it for me to second guess the wisdom. I just want it to work dammit.
Wrath, I hope you didn’t think that I was doubting your recollection of the article – I apologize unreservedly if I gave that impression.
I was simply doubting that blimps would turn out to be an economical way to deliver additional capacity to cellular systems.