At Techworld.com, Farpoint Group analyst Craig Mathias looks at the potential for airships to work as floating cell towers for broadband wireless.

Satellites, Mathias notes, generally orbit the Earth at about 23,300 miles -- from that altitude, they can see about a third of the Earth's surface, making them great for broadcasting applications like TV and radio. But they're expensive to launch and maintain, and for Internet or voice traffic, capacity and delay are significant problems.

"What's needed, then, is a cheaper, low-altitude solution," Mathias writes. "So, why not apply the idea of satellites to vehicles that operate within the atmosphere? The general concept is called "tall towers," because these platforms look like very tall (60,000 to 70,000 feet!) microwave relay towers. The idea is simple: Fly an aircraft or unmanned airship up to that altitude and equip it with radio relay hardware."

Mathias' article looks at a few companies in this space, like Angel Technologies, SkySpectrum, SkySentry and Sanswire Networks, all of which are at various stages of development.

"Will any company get the funds necessary to make the tall-tower vision a reality?" Mathias asks. "Since we can never have too much wireless capacity, I hope so. My guess for now is that the airship approach will be used to augment, rather than compete with, terrestrial cellular and broadband services. But then, it's early yet."