Five weird ways to bridge the digital divide

Planes

Another sky-high plan for delivering broadband to the unconnected is by using high altitude aircraft.

US company Angel Technologies Corporation had grand plans for Halo (high altitude long operation) aircraft to create 'wireless super-metropolitan area networks' by circling over cities and acting as a network hub - prefiguring today's fat-pipe dreams for blanket municipal wi-fi.

After acquiring suitable spectrum, the company planned to attach pods containing millimetre wavelength antenna arrays to the underbelly of its Halo aircraft fleet.

The planes would then have been launched over cities, circling at altitudes of more than 51,000 feet to provide a comms service footprint on the ground of around 120km in diameter. Homes in the coverage zones would have had to be equipped with space-age-style dome-shaped antenna on their roofs to ensure line-of-sight contact with the aircraft, which the company dubbed "flying antenna".

Rumours of plans for rollouts of other plane-based systems do crop up from time to time.

But this is one surely expensive - not to mention environmentally dubious - broadband delivery solution which is probably best suited to the deep pockets and niche needs of the military.

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