Metropolitan-wide broadband services may soon be coming from overhead. Sanswire Networks, LLC hopes to bring broadband to entire metropolitan areas via tiny airships. Atlanta, Georgia may be the first city to benefit from this interesting digital communication service, starting as early as next week.

Ground-based wireless equipment will coordinate signal dissemination using a Stratellite floating high over the city. The Stratellites are similar to satellites; however, the new devices are stationed in the stratosphere rather than being in space orbit.

According to Sanswire Networks, a Stratellite is a high-altitude airship that when in place in the stratosphere will provide a stationary platform for transmitting various types of wireless communications services currently transmitted from cell towers and satellites. It is not a balloon or a blimp. It is a high-altitude airship made of Spectra and powered by solar powered electrical engines, each Stratellite will reach its final altitude by utilizing a helium and nitrogen filled double envelope. Once in place at 65,000 feet each Stratellite will remain in one Global Positioning System (GPS) coordinate, providing the ideal wireless transmission platform. Each Stratellite has a payload capacity of several thousand pounds and clear line-of-site to approximately 300,000 square miles, an area roughly the size of Texas. However, the Company’s initial plan is to use one Stratellite for each major metropolitan area.