An American intelligence assessment found that the balloon used a commercially available U.S. network to communicate, primarily for navigation, U.S. officials say.
I was having a hard time imagining which company this could be. Not that I’m a fan of Verizon or Comcast, but I think they know what side their bread is buttered on. Which one wouldn’t?
It’s a satellite provider. Cell networks don’t work at that altitude. Starlink was my first guess too but, after some more thought, it could be Hughesnet. They probably have wider coverage.
Don’t think they were colluding with the provider. They probably just put a burner sim card into a 4g module and sent data over a VPN to China whenever it had signal.
I was having a hard time imagining which company this could be. Not that I’m a fan of Verizon or Comcast, but I think they know what side their bread is buttered on. Which one wouldn’t?
Then I remembered Starlink exists.
It’s a satellite provider. Cell networks don’t work at that altitude. Starlink was my first guess too but, after some more thought, it could be Hughesnet. They probably have wider coverage.
Probably Hughesnet or Viasat.
Don’t think they were colluding with the provider. They probably just put a burner sim card into a 4g module and sent data over a VPN to China whenever it had signal.