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Comment by caffeineninja | Hacker News Reader

This is an awesome idea.

However, in my mind, there is a potential issue that the article doesn't seem to mention.

How do they keep the balloons up for a long period of time, fighting all of the different variables of weather, gas leakage, temperature variances, material degradation due to being outdoors?

Fiber and copper stays in the ground undisturbed for decades, because it's cheap & low maintenance, barring from breaks.

While this seems cheap and easy to deploy, keeping it running is another thing entirely

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I'm assuming there's some sort of monitoring onboard system and when they need new parts, they'd just land at one of these predetermined stations and be refitted. There weren't a lot of details in that video but it seemed to me like they implied they were inexpensive and easy to swap parts from.

More likely they will not even bother to fix broken balloons and just launch new ones.

Sounds like they're just going to be replacing them all a few times a year: each balloon is expected to "stay aloft for 100+ days at a time."

cite: http://www.google.com/loon/faq/

"Project Loon balloons float in the stratosphere, twice as high as airplanes and the weather."

But they're tethered, right? Or no? if they're untethered, that's just crazy awesome. If they're tethered, I'm still slightly worried about the cables.

OH! They're just going to make enough that there is always one overhead! That's so damn cool. I can barely believe it. Wireless technology is some of the most amazing stuff.

Not tethered -- watch http://www.google.com/loon/how/

Definitely not tethered. Cables become super heavy at those lengths. Not to mention you need very strong/thick cables.

If you just try flying a kite on a good windy day an keep feeding it string, it will pretty quickly start loosing altitude.

Not tethered, as nostromo mentioned. The hazards created by cables in the air for airplanes would kill the idea before it could take off (pun not intended).

Laying fiber to non-dense populations is usually prohibitively expensive.

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