Broadband access - Skylinc

["John Nye" <john@xxxxxxx>]

Apologies if this is old news. Looks as if it is some way off though - but
quicker than ADSL
for some   --  me -:)



Without cable laying or expensive satellite connections, many of Britain's
small or remote communities have little hope of broadband reaching their
doorsteps. But if they look to the skies and think "balloons"
they might see
an affordable solution. Startup company SkyLinc says balloons are best, and
already has three broadband base stations - tethered aerostats as they are
technically known - floating 1.5km above their home county of Yorkshire.
SkyLinc's LIBRA (Low Cost Integrated Broadband Radio Access) system needs
just 18 base stations to provide total UK coverage and works by floating
helium-filled envelopes which are tethered and fed signals via fibre optic
pole. Each unit has a coverage equivalent to 2,000 traditional wireless
base
stations. Nobody's mentioning the war (the last time there was a network of
tethered balloons bobbing about the country) but Professor Jim Norton, the
government's former director of e-commerce, said they could well shoot BT's
business model "out of the water".
http://www.skylinc.co.uk




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