A new aircraft called High Altitude Long Operation-Proteus is designed to circle for hours some 50,000 feet high over major cities, functioning like a communications relay satellite does in space and carrying broadband wireless services, including high-speed Internet access and video- teleconferencing.

A region might receive 24-hour service from a fleet of three planes, each flown by two-man crews on eight-hour shifts, with each aircraft flying fixed patterns providing coverage to an area 75 miles in diameter. Industry analyst Jeffrey Kagan says, "I knew it wouldn't be too long before the Jetsons became reality. In the next several years, you will see truckloads of methods for delivering high speed methods of data to homes and offices.

((c) San Jose Mercury News)