A made-in-York tried and tested revolutionary solution to the problems of bringing broadband Internet cheaply, quickly and wherever it is needed may be taken to the U.S. if no one comes up with the £6 million necessary to literally launch the breakthrough technology in Yorkshire.

SkyLINC, based at Tower House, Fishergate, has already successfully test-launched its revolutionary wireless transmitter linked to a massive helium-filled balloon, effectively making it a 1.5 mile high mast for super-speed broadband.

It will be cheaper, faster and reach the rural parts that other broadband systems cannot reach. Yet backers for full development are hard to find in Yorkshire, say the firm's bosses.

While so far while some venture capitalists in Britain have expressed keen interest this has not yet translated into hard cash.

A spokesman for Yorkshire Forward said that its £3.1 million government broadband allocation had been spent helping businesses to trial conventional systems. "We have had discussions with SkyLINC and they have been advised that it is not something that we can support."

All last week, Neil Daly, SkyLINC's founder managing director and former York University student, was in Brussels trying to drum up financial and political support for the venture, and reporting big interest from Euro MPs.

Peter Chambers, business development manager, said: "We can't run on fresh air and If we don't get the funding there is a real chance that we will have to take the technology abroad."

Mr Chambers, formerly Yorkshire Forward's E-region programme director and BT's head of strategy for the North of England, added: "We have already received help for the development costs from an American aerospace company and that is where we may have to go. It would be sad if the Americans were able to exploit yet another British invention like the jet engine and the hovercraft."

At the test launch at Rufforth airfield last September, the airborne machinery, called Libra super-cell, covered a massive 80 kilometre diameter area and stayed rock-steady using gyroscope stabilisers.

Two visiting government ministers have praised the invention and £150,000 worth of Department of Trade and Industry development awards have winged SkyLINC's way given the promise that the launch of just 18 of these balloons could provide coverage of the high-speed Internet capability instantly for the whole of the UK, including now-deprived rural areas.

What is more, claims SkyLINC small business users of ISDN broadband are now paying two to three times the price of the Libra service for a 20th of the Libra bandwidth which can be accessed via a receiver dish.

One by-product of the invention, which has already had clearance from the Civil Aviation Authority, is that it could make completely unnecessary many of the thousands of controversial telecommunications masts throughout Britain.

Mr Chambers said: "We have had tremendous support and encouragement from Hugh Bayley, MP for York. He brought Douglas Alexander, the former e-commerce minister to see what we were doing and he said that Skylinc had the potential to be a great asset to 'UK plc'."

Earlier this month, Nigel Griffiths, the minister for small business met the firm at the Old Priory at Escrick where he praised SkyLINC's work for its "amazing potential."

Updated: 09:52 Tuesday, March 25, 2003