About one-third of the global population, around 3 billion people, doesn’t have access to the internet or has poor connections because of infrastructure limitations, economic disparities and geographic isolation. Today’s satellites and ground-based networks leave communications gaps where, because of geography, setting up traditional ground-based communications equipment would be too expensive.

High-altitude platform stations — telecommunications equipment positioned high in the air, on uncrewed balloons, airships, gliders and airplanes — could increase social and economic equality by filling internet connectivity gaps in ground and satellite coverage. This could allow more people to participate fully in the digital age.

One of the authors, Mohamed-Slim Alouini, is an electrical engineer who contributed to an experiment that showed it is possible to provide high data rates and ubiquitous 5G coverage from the stratosphere. The stratosphere is the second-lowest l