Weather balloons may soon provide the first affordable broadband Internet access to the one-billion-strong African mass market.
Accountant Timothy Anyasi and petroleum engineer Collins Nwani, both Nigerian-born serial entrepreneurs based in the U.S., have secured exclusive rights to market a type of near-space technology -- developed by American telecommunications company Space Data -- throughout the African continent.
Anyasi and Nwani decided to move ahead with their marketing plans after Space Data secured a contract with the United States military in 2007 to field-test the technology in Iraq and Afghanistan. The partners will operate through a consortium that is now in the formation stages, which they call Spaceloon.
The technology raises hydrogen-filled weather balloons, serving in effect as satellite substitutes, to an altitude between 80,000 and 100,000 feet. As individual users contact the balloons via modem, the balloons bridge them to a nearby Earth-bound network operations center (NOC), which in turn connects to various Internet gateways.
“Network operation centers are located close to a fiber optic cable -- say, in Lagos or Accra -- and a signal is sent back and forth to the [balloon] in near space,” Anyasi says.
By tapping into countries with fiber optic technology, Spaceloon intends to buy cheap access in the oceanfront capital cities of Africa for resale wirelessly to the interior.
Spaceloon will concentrate its initial efforts in four countries, which run roughly east to west on a similar latitude -- from westernmost Sierra Leone to Liberia, Ghana, and Nigeria. The company is seeking subsidies from the governments to prove the concept, followed by plans for a massive rollout as soon as possible.
Transmission speed will depend on the customer’s line of sight and the amount of bandwidth purchased, though Anyasi says download speeds should match or exceed those of satellite Internet solutions. Corporate customers, for example, can pay for a dedicated daily balloon that will deliver speeds up to 10 Mbit/s. Families, on the other hand, could opt for a budget-friendly plan of about 300 kbit/s. That's not super fast, but it would be the first affordable option ever available to some African residents.
Anyasi says bandwidth can be extended: “In busy times, we can simply send up more balloons.”
The balloons come down every 24 hours due to the limitations of battery life -- and to keep them from floating into territories that don’t subscribe to the service. “You’re looking at a wide geographic area -- there’s a wide jet stream at near space -- and that allows balloons to keep on floating without stop,” Anyasi explains. “It’s cheap to bring them down, as balloons cost only about $50, and since they are equipped with a GPS, it is easy to locate them and reuse them.”
Spaceloon will be the first ISP option available to the African mass market (outside the largest cities) without huge up-front costs. Currently, customers wishing fixed-line Internet access must either purchase a VSAT for as much as $10,000 or procure a personal wireless tower and roof-mounted dish for about $1,000.
Spaceloon customers would need only buy a locally made satellite dish for about $10, a regular modem, and connection to the service. Monthly pricing will be at least half the cost of all current options, according to Anyasi.
The impact on Africa’s Internet industry could be enormous.
Besides providing Internet access to previously unserved markets in city outskirts and rural regions, the technology would allow mobile phone operators to offer wireless modems to their customers. (Currently there are about 320 million mobile phone users in Africa.) To this end, Spaceloon is in discussions with large wireless providers Mobile Telephone Networks (MTN) and Vodafone, which each have a large business presence in a number of African countries.
The concept is simple, but the implications are massive. As Anyasi says, “Anyone, anywhere can get [wireless] Internet access. All you need is access to the sky and you have reception.”
— Deborah Nason is a freelance writer based in Connecticut.
This is a real thinking-outside-the-box solution, and I am impressed by its cleverness and lateral thinking. Kudos to the people planning it.
However...
I am wondering what kind of consumer-grade two-way transmission technology has a range of 20 miles and 10 mbit bandwidth. 100,000 feet is a good distance. It seems that it would require a couple hundred watts on both ends -- on the balloon and on the user's computer. A single balloon that covers the bandwidth needs of land the size of New Jersey would probably face some daunting packet/transmitter collission issues, as well.
Doesn't fiber bandwidth cost as much in Africa as it costs anywhere else? Isn't 300 kbs and 10 mbs a pretty expensive slice of bandwidth for even a comfortable African family?
Is there even a demand for high speed internet in those parts of Africa? I am probably tainted by what I've seen on TV, but if phone and electrical infrastructure are largely absent, how can internet access be a priority? The cost-of-entry, electronically, is much higher for internet access than it is for phone service and electricity.
I wish you all the success in the world, and while I may be overly cynical, I am also a person on the outside looking in who has no vested interest, so my point of view doesn't have the possibility of being skewed. Not saying your's is, but it is possible, everyone always thinks their own product is the best and will work exactly as predicted and has an answer for everything a critic can bring up to justify and make it sound reasonable.
Good luck
but to address a couple of side points you mention.
1- You could put solar panels and batteries on the cell towers instead of generators.
2- There is a market for everything, especially in more financially depressed areas where people tend to be more desperate than others.
3- Based on 1 balloon covering an area about the same as New Jersey(little less than 9K square miles) you need around 1300 Balloons for the entire continant of Africa. Based on the North Dakota example, you are going to need a minimum of 4000 balloons up in the air at any given time, and that doesn't get into the need in more dense areas for more than one balloon. That's a lot more than "a few hundred"
4- You don't know the US Military too well if you don't think they would buy into something that is crap, on a conservative basis, I would say that probably 25% of the money spent by the US Military is on crap, whether new crap, or trying to get the old crap they already bought to work or stay working. That's about 125 billion in a given year.
5- I never said, nor meant to imply that it's better to keep people ignorant instead of educating them because it is cheaper. My point is that it's naive to believe that just because you can give someone a chance for education by having access to information that you are all of a sudden going to somehow magically get rid of ignorance.
6- Obama was not elected solely because of the internet, yes, he and his campaign utilized it very successfully, but you, nor anyone else can say they couldn't have won had they done the same through other traditional mediums.
but really, in the end, from my own personal point of view, trying to bridge the digital divide is a great cause that is a noble effort, I think that it is pretty useless if those same people still don't have food to eat or medicine for illness. Internet access and education is useless if you are still going to die from some illness or starve to death.
I will answer your questions point for point and perhaps we can move on to solving the immeditate needs.
Telecommunication is not a cheap enterprise especially in Africa. You really have no idea what it cost to run a single cell tower in Africa. So I will share that info with you.
First you need to shell out $200,000 http://tinyurl.com/myrwcs minimun to build a tall enough cell tower ( enough to buy 4,000 balloons - 6,000 with mass production. enough balloons for 11yrs daily launch of a single balloon)
Secondly - Electricity infrastracture is very poor so cell towers need there own $5,000 power generators, that needs to be fueled and maintained. I will not go into the environmental impact of burning fossil fuel. Compare this with our rechargable batteries and we will be using solar panels in the near future.
Thirdly - security personnel need to be posted to each cell tower to protect the generators. if the generators are stolen, so goes the service.
finally - I think you also need transportation to haul gas and personnel to these cell towers
You made mention of how much the access point cost. Hello? all internet service providers have access points.
Also our devices will not be stolen for 3 reasons
there is no market for it ( same reason cell relayers are hardly stolen)
We pay people to return if found
we set what time, location they land and have gps to know exactly where they landed. This means we are usually the first to get to it.
Any object at 80,000ft has a coverage area of a little more than size of New Jersey.
Payloads are assembled parts, so usually all parts do not fail at once. But on average, a payload on average runs for at least a few years
with a few hundred balloons, we got the whole continent well served, compared to 20,000+ cell towers
We work within the jet stream in near space, if the current is eastbound we launch from the west. get the picture?
NOC does not have to be in the foot print of a particular balloon. We create a network mesh in the sky and do relays.
Also hydrogen is cheap and pretty safe to transport and can be stored in tanks at launch locations. we pay farmers to help us launch the payloads.
Number of NOC depends on demand pattern and spread of our subscribers.
bandwidth capability of each balloon depends on number of users within it's footprint. We use higher payload for denser areas.
We monitor, the coverage area of each balloon from the NOC and since the wind speed is fairly consistent and predictable there is only a slow drift and we launch new balloons once we notice a gap in coverage, is about to happen. Also we can steer a balloon in a desire direction.
On the issue of failure, more than $80m has been invested to get this technology to where it is right now. And the US military definately will not buy into this if it was some crap. All technology must go from small scale to large, so why is this any different? And let us know how to raise the $100b to run fiber optics through half of Africa. until then, we will make do with a $100m solution.
Lastly, please do not preach to me, how ignorance is cheaper than education. We are interested in bridging the digital divide. Obama won simply becuase there was internet in the US. remove the internet and there is no Obama. So what is your point?
It's cheap up front, but there's long term costs of consumablesis what troubles me and makes me skeptical. Battery replacement, battery charging cost, total number of balloons needed + Replacement of balloons, hydrogen or helium to refill the balloons on a daily basis, trucks(buying+gas+maintinance) and personell to retrieve the downed ballooons.
Sure, the baloon and GPS only cost $30, but how much does the access point that those are attached to cost? How often are those likely to break when they land? What happens if people start to steal them once they land?
I can't seem to find any references to coverages area of each balloon.
What kind of square mileage will a single balloon cover?
What is the expected number of launches that a single balloon is expected to last?
How many launch locations will be needed to cover a single country or the continant as a whole?
How much hydrogen and helium will be required to launch each balloon? How will this gas be delivered to really remote locations?
How far from a NOC can a balloon be located and still be able to give someone access?
How many NOCs will be required to be built to support the infrastructure of balloons?
What kind of bandwidth is a single balloon capable of providing?
How is a balloon guaranteed to stay within a certain zone in order to provide reliable service?
Don't get me wrong, I hope you are able to succeed, but these are questions I see unanswered to those on the outside, and while I think the project is a noble one, these questions lead me to wonder if the costs are worth it, and it makes me wonder about the long term viability of the solution. If this is only meant to be a short term solution, then what is the long term solution and in the long term, is it possible the investment in this short term solution might be better spent in making the long term solution better?
I understand that this has been a success on the small scale, but transition to the larger scale is what worries me and is usually the problem, and to see something like this get started and then fail could potentially be more damaging than taking the time and extra money to built it better in the first place.
It also strikes me as a bit naive to think that just because someone has access, it automatically increases their opportunities for them or is some kind of magic cure for corruption in government just because the population has more education.
I get your point Timothy_Anyasi, and I wish you the best for the project. Please don't let it die and keep us posted for its evolution. We all understand the challenge you will be facing for its realization, but don't let any skeptisism discourage you. Keep punshing!
With all due respect how much do you think it will cost to lay fiber optic cables inland across Africa (Africa is larger than the combination of US, Canada, Mexico and China)? So yes this is super cheap compared to any other options.
Balloons cost $50 and gps devices cost $30, so where is the high expense you worry about. Just so you know it cost tens of thousands of dollars to build a single mobile phone cell tower.
regarding politics, i do not wish to get into that. If you think you can do better in a place without internet or infractructure please feel free to migrate to the Amazon :)
Nothing is wrong about accessing the internet via balloons or whatever access points are available. My concern is about how viable the concept will really be. Is this a temporary solution or what?
While I know there is probably something I am missing, but I can't really see how this can be anything more than a temporary solution.
Sure a balloon might be cheap, but balloons wear out and need to be replaced, but how many balloons are they going to need in the first place? What kind of coverage area does one balloon serve?
On top of that, these balloons need to be filled with hydrogen or helium in order to make them float, that is not an inexpensive venture when you consider all the costs associated with this. Plus the cost of all the GPS equipment, plus the cost of all the vehicles and personel required to hunt down and find all these balloons when they fall back to earth every 24 hours.
Also, Timothy, I have to side with kurtkeys on the whole scamming issue. I can't buy your rationalizations. I don't believe smarter citizens would change corruption in government, anywhere, I think the only thing it would change is the number of people fighting to get into the government.
Also, the proliferation of the internet does not magically generate jobs and opportunities for employement. Crime exists not out of need but out of ease or simplicity. People commit crimes because it's less work than going out and working a regular job, why would someone go work somewhere for $X per year if they can put in 1/10 the effort and scam people to make $X2?
While my view may be highly cynical, my intent is not to completely diminish this idea as being worthwhile, that is far from the case. However I think that this is probably not the best solution in the long term. I think this way of thinking is similar to the belief that the world is capable of being a world of unicorns and rainbows. I think it's an overly optimistic fantasy to think that just having access to the internet is some sort of magic bullet that is going to turn around a country, continent, or group of people from the depths of poverty into a highly productive, educated and peaceful society.
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