NetMotion, Panasonic and Microsoft Strapped a Tablet to a Weather Balloon and Sent it into the Stratosphere

What’s the news: NetMotion, Panasonic and Microsoft worked with UK customer Centrica to send a TOUGHBOOK into the stratosphere in a stress test to showcase a successful Teams call in the sky.

Why this is important: This tested the extreme limits of product durability, network connectivity and application performance over the beautiful English countryside. Don’t try this at home.

London, United Kingdom – Nov. 14, 2019 –NetMotion Software, a powerhouse in connectivity and security solutions for the world’s growing mobile workforce, today announced a product stress test carried out with Microsoft and Panasonic in the UK. The test, which involved strapping a Panasonic TOUGHBOOK® tablet to a weather balloon, took the tablet up, up and away into the stratosphere while running a Microsoft Teams call. Transitioning seamlessly from a Wi-Fi connection to a 4G LTE cellular network at 110 feet, and then maintaining the call to a dizzying height of almost 10,000 feet, the TOUGHBOOK finally came crashing back to earth when the weather balloon exploded somewhere over Herefordshire at around 100,000 feet. By pushing these products well beyond their normal limits, the team wanted to prove that field workers everywhere can truly rely on these solutions to get their jobs done.

Having worked together for several years with Centrica – a multinational energy company better known by its British Gas brand – NetMotion, Microsoft and Panasonic wanted to demonstrate the compatibility and reliability of their solutions in demanding and harsh environments.

Let the team do the talking…

“A constant network connection is critical to the success of our field workers. NetMotion, Panasonic and Microsoft deliver incredibly complementary solutions that ensure a stable connection in any situation. This acid test was a brilliant way to prove it.”

Stuart Carver
Mobile Device Specialist, Centrica

“Maintaining connectivity is clearly key for the vast majority of mobile workers, making this experiment an opportunity to showcase what we do for customers like Centrica. The TOUGHBOOK range is intrinsically rugged, designed to cope with vibration, shock and temperature extremes. Even after dropping 100,000 feet this tablet was unscathed.”

Daniel Creasey
UK & I Marketing Manager, Panasonic Toughbook

“Tests like these really push hardware and software to their breaking points. While I wouldn’t expect the average person in the field to push the limits this far, it’s good to know that our devices, applications and critical network connections can outperform anything we throw at them.”

Achi Lewis
Country Manager UK, NetMotion Software

Watch the full “TOUGHBOOK & Teams Take Flight” video here.