Subject: Airplane-to-ground Internet system envisioned
Airplane-to-ground Internet system envisioned
http://www.nando.net/newsroom/ntn/info/091497/info6_17260_noframes.htmstd.com
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Copyright =A9 1997 Nando.net
Copyright =A9 1997 The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (September 14, 1997 01:15 a.m. EDT) -- Call it a
communications tower in the sky: Specially equipped airplanes
circling 24 hours a day, providing high-speed wireless Internet
access and other data services to people on the ground.
A slew of companies are offering or plan to offer wireless data
links that would let customers surf the Net, send and receive e-mail,
faxes or files from their computers at home or work. Sophisticated,
cellular-like networks on terra firma or satellites out in space
would carry the load.
But a small St. Louis company thinks it has a better idea: Put all
the hardware in the air, right over our heads.
Angel Technologies Corp.'s proposed system is "basically a tall
tower in the sky," president Peter Diamandis said.
Flying in a circular path between 52,000 and 60,000 feet, a plane
with a pod attached to its underside carrying an antenna and other
communications equipment would beam wireless data services to and
from a specific metropolitan area, explained Chief Executive Officer
Marc Arnold.
The range of the service would be limited -- 50 miles to 75 miles in
diameter -- and beyond that, people would lose the signal.
To provide round-the-clock service to just one metro area, three
piloted planes, each flying consecutive 8-hour missions are needed,
Arnold said.
The planes would need FAA clearance and certification to fly.
To send and receive signals, people would need an 18-inch dish
mounted on a rooftop or outside a window.
It's a new twist on an old concept, experts say.
In the early 1960s, a converted army plane transmitted public
television signals to schools in the Midwest for several years, said
a former public broadcasting engineer, Peter Fannon.
And for 12 years, the federal government has beamed radio signals,
later followed by TV signals, into Cuba via a transmitter aboard a
tethered balloon 10,000 feet above the Florida Keys.
More recently, President Reagan's secretary of state, Alexander Haig
Jr., has been involved in a project called Sky Station that would
provide worldwide high-speed wireless Internet access, mobile phone
service and other data communications via blimp-like aircraft.
Angel's proposal would be a tough sell to investors and would-be
customers, said Elliott Hamilton, a vice president with The
Strategis Group, a wireless research company here.
"If I were a customer, would I depend upon these planes flying
overhead?" he asks. "I don't see this ever going off the ground. In
the early days of cellular, people talked about cellular sky pilots.
Why have a cell site on the ground when you could have it up in the
air? No one ever did anything."
For Angel's plan to work, it needs a big slice of the public
airwaves. Angel executives said they won't bid for airwaves licenses,
but want to team up with companies that already hold them.
Negotiations, they say, are under way. In December, the FCC will
begin auctioning licenses for big chunks of spectrum at frequencies
that would be well-suited to Angel's proposed operation.
In the meantime, a prototype of the special airplane Angel expects
to use is being built by Scaled Composites in Mojave, Calif. The
first flight test is expected next year. Scaled Composites created
the Voyager, which in 1986 became the first aircraft to fly around
the world without refueling.
If Angel's plan gets off the ground, executives hope to begin
offering service in selected metropolitan markets in 2000, Arnold
said.
Angel executives insist that the company will be able to provide
service more cheaply than rivals using wireless networks on the
ground and satellite systems in space. But they would not offer
financial details to support this.
"As far as the economics, it's true the terrestrial networks have
relatively high upfront capital costs, but once you build those
networks, you have very low costs. Their system would have a
continuous very high operating costs," said Hamilton.
Arnold said financing has been lined up only for building the
prototype plane and testing it. He said each plane costs at least a
few million dollars to make.
Angel wouldn't offer service directly to consumers, but would join
other companies that hold licenses to provide wireless service to
U.S. homes and businesses or license its network technology to them.
------------------
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WASHINGTON (September 14, 1997 01:15 a.m. EDT) -- Call it a
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circling 24 hours a day, providing high-speed wireless Internet
access and other data services to people on the ground.
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