But that’s not to say dreams of mega-speed Web downloads are over. Challenging Proteus for sheer audacity is the Stratellite, a giant airship that uses solar powered engines to sit at about 65,000ft, beaming data over a radius of about 77,700 square kilometres — think blimp meets mobile phone tower.

The Stratellite, which has been developed by a company called Sanswire, is 74.6m long, 44.2m high, and contains nearly 37 million litres of gas. Made of Kevlar, the dirigible is powered by electric motors and held in a position determined by six GPS units. In addition to Internet data, it can be fitted for mobile phone transmission, paging, fixed wireless telephony and high definition TV broadcasts. The downside is that the Stratellite can only sustain 18 months in the air without repairs.

It’s also cumbersome, but the blimp’s advantage over satellites is that it sits much lower to the ground, so it theoretically doesn’t suffer from the same data lag problems.

said by GOLFnSUN :

High flying blimps may be alternative to DirecTV's internet product. The US military uses balloons/blimps in Iraq and Afghanistan for communications and surveillance.