<html><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt">The article linked below explains most of it I think, some quotes:<br><br>"ground stations with Internet capabilities about 100 kilometers apart bounce signals up to the balloons"<br>"signals would hop forward, from one balloon to the next, along a backbone of up to five balloons"<div><br></div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 16px; font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;">From what I can gather, the balloons would probably form some kind of loose mesh network.</div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 16px; font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;">The balloons are 20km up in the air, so you need a special antenna to connect to them.</div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 16px;
font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;"><br></div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 16px; font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;">Think of it as a replacement for satellite connection in remote places. Also not sure about continuous connection, the guy from the trial in the article said that he had 15 minutes of Internet access before the balloon went past. You would have to assume that they next one coming along would then pick up the signal, but unless you have quite a large number of balloons it might be sporadic at best. This would still be better than no Internet at all for remote locations. I'm google are developing (or already have) something in chrome to allow for this sporadic access ;)<br></div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 16px; font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;
background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;"><br></div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 16px; font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;">Now they just need to fit some low power servers with big disks to these balloons so they can cache content "locally" on the balloons themselves !</div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 16px; font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;"><br></div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 16px; font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;"><br></div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 16px; font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;">regards,</div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 16px; font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;
background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;">Tony.<br></div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 16px; font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;"><br></div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 16px; font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;"><br><blockquote style="border-left: 2px solid rgb(16, 16, 255); margin-left: 5px; margin-top: 5px; padding-left: 5px;"> <div style="font-family: times new roman, new york, times, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> <div style="font-family: times new roman, new york, times, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> <div> <hr size="1"><font face="Arial" size="2"><b><span style="font-weight:bold;"></span></b></font>Any clues as to how its backhauled?<br><br>On 14/07/2013, at 5:08 AM, "Andrew White" <<a rel="nofollow" ymailto="mailto:admin@uberskilled.com" target="_blank"
href="mailto:admin@uberskilled.com">admin@uberskilled.com</a>> wrote:<br><br></div><div class="y_msg_container"><div id="yiv5403761145"><div><blockquote type="cite"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><i style="color:rgb(54,54,54);font-family:'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', serif;font-size:14px;line-height:20px;">Cassidy said in the next phase of the trial they hope to get up to 300 balloons forming a ring on the 40th parallel south from New Zealand through Australia, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay and Argentina.</i><br>
</div><div><i style="color:rgb(54,54,54);font-family:'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', serif;font-size:14px;line-height:20px;"><br></i></div><div><font color="#363636" face="Palatino Linotype, Book Antiqua, serif"><span style="font-size:14px;line-height:20px;">Bloody Tasmanians are going to get it first, again!<br>
<br></span></font><a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://bigstory.ap.org/article/google-begins-launching-internet-beaming-balloons">http://bigstory.ap.org/article/google-begins-launching-internet-beaming-balloons</a><font color="#363636" face="Palatino Linotype, Book Antiqua, serif"><span style="font-size:14px;line-height:20px;"><br>
</span></font></div><div class="yiv5403761145gmail_extra"><br></div></div></div></blockquote></div></div><br></div> </div> </div> </blockquote></div> </div></body></html>