08.12.02
Innovative Wireless Solutions
by Aleah Mickelson
Airborne Transceivers
Space Data is full of hot air - literally. The Arizona company is using weather balloons to provide data coverage in remote areas, many of which don't even have landline communications.
Consider this: Approximately 80 percent of the U.S. population lives on less than 10 percent of the nation's landmass. For the most part, these people enjoy ubiquitous telecom service — landline and wireless — and easy access to 9-1-1 and other emergency and public safety services.
But what about the other 20 percent of U.S. residents who are spread out across 90 percent of the landmass? For some of these people, especially those living on Indian reservations, even landline telephones may be hard to come by. According to the 1990 census, only 47 percent of Native American homes on reservations had a telephone. That percentage is expected to improve only slightly in the coming years as the cost of deploying landline infrastructure discourages many telecom providers from taking the plunge.
Wireless communications may provide the answer to this dilemma, but even so, traditional wireless networks carry their own set of problems. In areas of dense population, towers are the norm for providing wireless coverage. But in sparsely populated areas, it is rarely cost-effective to erect towers that serve only serve a handful of potential customers. Wireless communications, if available, are often spotty in coverage and exorbitant in price.
Filling Gaps in Coverage
Although many unconventional ideas have been devised to bring wireless
communications to rural areas, one company, Chandler, Ariz.-based Space
Data, Corp., is making headway on a solution. Established in 1997,
Space Data has developed a blueprint for a coast-to-coast wireless
network that doesn't require towers or satellites. Instead, it relies
on weather balloons to provide a ubiquitous, nationwide network and
to fill in coverage holes in rural and outlying, suburban areas.
The company plans to launch disposable transmitters attached to inexpensive weather balloons from 70 sites in 48 states twice a day. The balloons, called "SkySitesTM," climb to about 100,000 feet, where they provide wireless communication services for approximately 12 to 24 hours. A new "constellation" of SkySitesTM is launched every 12 hours. When the balloons burst, the transceiver falls to the ground. Space Data attaches directions to the device for returning the transceiver in case it is found. Because SkySitesTM weigh less than six pounds and pose little threat to aircraft safety, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) allows them to be launched without restriction in domestic airspace.
Space Data plans to operate primarily as a "carrier's carrier," providing service to existing wireless operators, which in turn serve the end users. The system allows wireless carriers to extend their reach into previously underserved areas at a fraction of the cost of building towers or using satellites, says Eric Schimmel, a member of Space Data's board of directors and former vice president of the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA). "The whole premise of how Space Data got started was to fill in coverage gaps in rural areas." Initially, the company will offer mobile data services; however, plans are underway to offer wireless voice at a later point.
Cost-Effective Solutions
The latex balloons Space Data uses are inexpensive, and the disposable
base stations cost about $300 apiece, according to Schimmel. Each weather
balloon has a 200-mile footprint and covers an area of about 100,000
square miles. The SkySitesTM overlap in coverage, enabling ubiquitous
wireless service. A tower, on the other hand, covers from 100 to 150
miles.
Unlike new technologies, Space Data's system works with existing communications devices, carriers, brands, distribution channels, and service plans. Space Data's SkySitesTM work in concert with current ground-based wireless systems and do not compete with towers or existing service providers.
When a subscriber who is out of range of a tower sends a wireless message or email, the transmission is received by one of the constellation's balloons. The balloon's equipment functions as a repeater, relaying the signal to a ground station, and the return signal passes through a control site. "Signals just flow back and forth," Schimmel says.
Deployment Timetable
Last November, Space Data won more than 1.4 megahertz of nationwide narrowband
PCS spectrum in the FCC's 900 MHz auction. Space Data will pay approximately
$4.2 million for these spectrum licenses after small business and tribal
land bidding credits. Although the company plans to sell its services
to carriers for the most part, it can also use the spectrum to bring
advanced digital wireless communications services to rural areas and
fill current coverage gaps across the United States.
Space Data is planning a trial run of its text-messaging service in the Phoenix area this summer, and deployment is scheduled to take place before the end of the year. Initially, the company's network will support wireless e-mail, advanced messaging, telemetry, asset-tracking, and wireless data services. The official launch of Space Data's messaging service is slated for next spring in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Oklahoma.
The company also is moving forward on plans to provide telecom service for Indian reservations. To date, the Jicarilla Apache Nation of New Mexico; Eastern Band of Cherokee of North Carolina; Hualapai of Arizona; and Fort McDermitt Shoshone Paiute Tribe of Nevada and Oregon have chosen Space Data to provide communications services via its SkySitesTM service.