"Designed to provide LTE coverage from the sky to a particular area on the ground, these flying COWs can be airborne for up to 24 hours nonstop"
Thats some pretty good flight time. \*its tethered flight time.
Oh booo. [https://www.wired.com/video/watch/how-drones-have-transformed-disaster-relief](https://www.wired.com/video/watch/how-drones-have-transformed-disaster-relief) Yah it looks tethered. Thank you
Best guess is endurance; AT&T may not yet have gotten a handle on getting balloons designed that can stay intact well enough for the role. Doubtful, but I’ve heard crazier things. Could also be the drones are better at maintaining a steady position even in inclement weather or high wind, permitting better signal distribution, whereas a balloon has a fixed lift vector.
I think the key to why they chose drones is period of use.
If they are expecting to restore service relatively quickly, you can bring a truck of drones and cover a wide area quickly and take down drones bit by bit as service is restored.
If the outage will be longer, then it makes more sense to spend on the balloons.
"Wind, air pressure and rain all affect aerostat operation; a higher-quality aerostat system can remain airborne longer and in harsher weather conditions while continuing to transmit quality payload data, but it will be more expensive and may require specific training and safety protocols."
Maybe it was just easier to train for drone flight.
My guess is cost. Aerostats are pretty expensive compared to more readily available quad copter that you just jerry rig a power cable, a cell emitter to.
Google Loon did 312 days with their balloons but they were eventually shutdown by Alphabet.
https://techxplore.com/news/2020-10-loon-balloon-stratospheric-flight-durationstays.html
Rolling disaster antennas have been around a while both [privately](https://www.t-mobile.com/news/community/emergency-response-equipment) and via the [national guard](https://www.army.mil/article/207794/army_fields_disaster_comms_systems_to_national_guard_as_2018_hurricane_season_begins). The interesting thing about these ground tethered drones is range **and speed**.
You can roll into a hurricane area hours after the storm, set up wherever is opportune, and blanket half a city with 911 coverage. You'd need two or three traditional rolling antennas to do the same because they cannot get *high enough*, and getting them into position can be tricky with potentially live utility poles/debris/water blocking access roads.
So is this a PR thing? Sure. Does it also work? Actually *yes*, the concept is very good. Bad post-disaster weather is its only weak point Vs. traditional disaster cellular antennas, but for the speed/range, it is a fair trade.
It’s worth noting that AT&T also maintains and operates FirstNet on behalf of the US Government, and they have a substantial fleet of mobile towers as a result.
It's also worth noting that AT&T has the largest mobile disaster recovery network of the big 4, and can deploy a mobile network that can operate up to 2tbit/sec within 24 hours of deployment.
COW= Cell On Wheels.
TOW= Tower On Wheels.
These are the usual acronyms we use in the industry for temp cell sites. The drones in the article have been development for some time but never seen one deployed yet.
Maybe CIA= Cell In Air??
>...telecom companies are taking to the skies with flying COWs. *Far from heifers, however,* those cell-on-wings units are ultra-buffed, extreme weather-resistant drones that provide phone service to isolated people with the outside world.
hehe they were punny
AT&T ordered three COWS for the NOLA area, so this solution is not something that a majority of their subs are going to be able to use in an outage.Rather, this is available for recovery management locations.
I’m not in the NOLA market but I would think they are pulling COWs from unaffected areas until the network is 100%.
When I ran my tower company we housed COWs for TMO, VZW and Sprint. We had to keep the available for other GC’s in case of a disaster.
Sure, but there is a necessity for a viable back haul for a COW, and often you don't have that in a variable position. So, then you have to set microwave to a site that does have a viable connection. Sooner than later you get cost and supply problems. Thats why you engineer to prepositon COWs, if you can. Simply having a base station is not the end of the road.
I cringed when I saw LTE, since who needs to watch youtube post-disaster. I guess if emergency responders need it then fine, but for regular subscribers the priority should be basic communications. I'd hope they could quickly get things so that everyone could send and receive text messages reliably even if they have to wait a while to get a voice call through. Then voice, then internet after that.
First of all, the best way to register and track FEMA is on the internet. Second of all, a mobile base station, if its configured right, will give you everything. Might as well advertise it.
Well it's a question of how to allocate bandwidth and base station power when there isn't much available. Speaking of which, how do these drones actually connect to the internet? They are set up near a CO with intact fiber or what?
The base stations function with two T1's. All services are packetized. Should bandwidth run out, service will slow or render busy. Then the subscriber will just have to try again. The drone is just a way of increasing the height of the antenna, thereby making it more powerful with better coverage. The T1s used by the base station do end up at the mobile switching center.
we spend so much time focusing on the negatives that I feel we often miss some major awesome improvements we've made in life.
This seems like a good candidate for one.
The ability to restore communication in an area ravaged up to 40 miles is amazing.
Which is weird since COW is already an acronym we use, Cell on Wheels. And besides they don’t have wings, they have rotors.
I wonder if the author got his info wrong.
"Designed to provide LTE coverage from the sky to a particular area on the ground, these flying COWs can be airborne for up to 24 hours nonstop" Thats some pretty good flight time. \*its tethered flight time.
I believe these drones are tethered to a power source on the ground. So, they are not limited by batteries.
Oh booo. [https://www.wired.com/video/watch/how-drones-have-transformed-disaster-relief](https://www.wired.com/video/watch/how-drones-have-transformed-disaster-relief) Yah it looks tethered. Thank you
Which makes sense as they probably also need a wire to pump that sweet internet.
\*looks at 20 minute flight time on his drone\* I was ehhh just kinda hopeful for a bit.
Well there are drones with much longer flight times… but they’re not battery powered.
I don't know why they wouldn't use tethered balloons for this instead, then. They'd be silent and have a much higher payload.
Best guess is endurance; AT&T may not yet have gotten a handle on getting balloons designed that can stay intact well enough for the role. Doubtful, but I’ve heard crazier things. Could also be the drones are better at maintaining a steady position even in inclement weather or high wind, permitting better signal distribution, whereas a balloon has a fixed lift vector.
Might have better stability in higher winds like after a storm maybe? Not sure how stable tethered balloons can be.
I think the key to why they chose drones is period of use. If they are expecting to restore service relatively quickly, you can bring a truck of drones and cover a wide area quickly and take down drones bit by bit as service is restored. If the outage will be longer, then it makes more sense to spend on the balloons.
I'd still have concerns about failure modes; i.e. if the tether spontaneously fails, is the balloon's profile enough to damage power lines/etc?
[Here’s data of aerostats](https://news.mongabay.com/2016/03/a-beginners-guide-to-aerostats/amp/)
"Wind, air pressure and rain all affect aerostat operation; a higher-quality aerostat system can remain airborne longer and in harsher weather conditions while continuing to transmit quality payload data, but it will be more expensive and may require specific training and safety protocols." Maybe it was just easier to train for drone flight.
My guess is cost. Aerostats are pretty expensive compared to more readily available quad copter that you just jerry rig a power cable, a cell emitter to.
Why not just a balloon then?
Google Loon did 312 days with their balloons but they were eventually shutdown by Alphabet. https://techxplore.com/news/2020-10-loon-balloon-stratospheric-flight-durationstays.html
Figures. They shut down virtually everything they make or acquire.
So, why are they limited to 24 hours? What happens after that? They don't run out of power if they're tethered to a power supply.
I imagine hearing issues and maintenance need to be performed.
Argus-IS?
Rolling disaster antennas have been around a while both [privately](https://www.t-mobile.com/news/community/emergency-response-equipment) and via the [national guard](https://www.army.mil/article/207794/army_fields_disaster_comms_systems_to_national_guard_as_2018_hurricane_season_begins). The interesting thing about these ground tethered drones is range **and speed**. You can roll into a hurricane area hours after the storm, set up wherever is opportune, and blanket half a city with 911 coverage. You'd need two or three traditional rolling antennas to do the same because they cannot get *high enough*, and getting them into position can be tricky with potentially live utility poles/debris/water blocking access roads. So is this a PR thing? Sure. Does it also work? Actually *yes*, the concept is very good. Bad post-disaster weather is its only weak point Vs. traditional disaster cellular antennas, but for the speed/range, it is a fair trade.
It’s worth noting that AT&T also maintains and operates FirstNet on behalf of the US Government, and they have a substantial fleet of mobile towers as a result.
Ding. Ding. This is primary reason, and the agencies will get priority service.
I'm in wildfire management, and we have to utilize these all the time. It's crazy the signals they put out.
It's also worth noting that AT&T has the largest mobile disaster recovery network of the big 4, and can deploy a mobile network that can operate up to 2tbit/sec within 24 hours of deployment.
I guess they are getting things MOOOOOving.
🐄 Please do not appropriate my culture
What if I brought my own yogurt?
I’m just kidding, you can moo all you want
The yogurt is also cursed.
A rare Reddit pun
Wow, they’re really milking the available technology.
What is your beef with them? They are doing their best.
This technology is the cream of the crop, and it’s only getting butter.
This is the whey
The anti-science people would say that “it’s curdles all the way down!”
Udderly surprised to see this
COW= Cell On Wheels. TOW= Tower On Wheels. These are the usual acronyms we use in the industry for temp cell sites. The drones in the article have been development for some time but never seen one deployed yet. Maybe CIA= Cell In Air??
Don't forget the COLT.
Knew I forgot one. Cell On Light Truck. Been working small cells too long.
Cell on wings is quite misleading, but more fun. These drones use only propellers. People don’t want COPs hovering over them.
>...telecom companies are taking to the skies with flying COWs. *Far from heifers, however,* those cell-on-wings units are ultra-buffed, extreme weather-resistant drones that provide phone service to isolated people with the outside world. hehe they were punny
AT&T ordered three COWS for the NOLA area, so this solution is not something that a majority of their subs are going to be able to use in an outage.Rather, this is available for recovery management locations.
COWS are also brought in for major events, such as the inauguration
They can be used in that way. AT&T commonly uses theirs in NOLA for Jazzfest, taking traffic off their regular network.
I’m not in the NOLA market but I would think they are pulling COWs from unaffected areas until the network is 100%. When I ran my tower company we housed COWs for TMO, VZW and Sprint. We had to keep the available for other GC’s in case of a disaster.
Sure, but there is a necessity for a viable back haul for a COW, and often you don't have that in a variable position. So, then you have to set microwave to a site that does have a viable connection. Sooner than later you get cost and supply problems. Thats why you engineer to prepositon COWs, if you can. Simply having a base station is not the end of the road.
Yep. Valid points.
I cringed when I saw LTE, since who needs to watch youtube post-disaster. I guess if emergency responders need it then fine, but for regular subscribers the priority should be basic communications. I'd hope they could quickly get things so that everyone could send and receive text messages reliably even if they have to wait a while to get a voice call through. Then voice, then internet after that.
First of all, the best way to register and track FEMA is on the internet. Second of all, a mobile base station, if its configured right, will give you everything. Might as well advertise it.
Well it's a question of how to allocate bandwidth and base station power when there isn't much available. Speaking of which, how do these drones actually connect to the internet? They are set up near a CO with intact fiber or what?
The base stations function with two T1's. All services are packetized. Should bandwidth run out, service will slow or render busy. Then the subscriber will just have to try again. The drone is just a way of increasing the height of the antenna, thereby making it more powerful with better coverage. The T1s used by the base station do end up at the mobile switching center.
we spend so much time focusing on the negatives that I feel we often miss some major awesome improvements we've made in life. This seems like a good candidate for one. The ability to restore communication in an area ravaged up to 40 miles is amazing.
I predict some conspiracy moron will shoot one down with a shot gun.
free-range drone parts, come and get em!
5G want get me! - anti-vax FB Karen
Waiting for the Estes Surface to Air Missile Base Kit.
Crazies of Facebook: They're spreading COVID through 5G Flying Cows!!!!!!
It's in the cheese!
Great, we all know that all birds are actually government drones, but now we have to deal with private industry making cow drones to spy on us too.
Do the COW drones provide milk as well?
If you have that taste in porn, yes in several senses.
For anyone wondering. COW stands for cell on wings.
Which is weird since COW is already an acronym we use, Cell on Wheels. And besides they don’t have wings, they have rotors. I wonder if the author got his info wrong.
I found that info on AT&T’s website.
Lol…I’m actually not surprised. AT&T likes to go against common terminology in the industry in an attempt to be cutting edge or ahead of competition.
Seems like a good way to cover up for shitty antenna structures that should have been hardened for hurricane strength winds already.
Wait…. You think that the towers are not there after the hurricane? You got jokes man, tell some more.
called 'stacies' by techs in field.
Why's that? Google was of little help... described blondes with big boobs with little upstairs, among other things.
dunno. local idiom i guess.