Google has already rolled out Google Fibre, a fibre-to-the-premises service, which includes a free Internet option. But what could really be the gamechanger is Project Loon, or affordable balloon-powered Internet.
Google calls it a “network of balloons travelling on the edge of space, designed to connect people in rural and remote areas, help fill coverage gaps, and bring people back online after disasters”. Project Loon balloons will travel in the stratosphere, approximately 20 km above the Earth’s surface, latching on to layers of wind as directed by software algorithms to determine where they need to go. In the end, they will form one large communications network. The inflatable envelopes are made from sheets of polyethylene plastic, 15 metres wide and 12 metres tall when fully inflated. They are designed to stay up for at least 100 days in one go.
The electronics are powered by an array of solar panels mounted at a steep angle to effectively capture sunlight on short winter days at higher latitudes. The panels can produce about 100 Watts of power in full sun, enough to keep the electronics running, along with charging a battery for use at night. The small box under the balloon will contain circuit boards that control the system, radio antennas to communicate with other balloons and with Internet antennas on the ground, and lithium ion batteries to store solar power so the balloons can operate throughout the night. Each balloon can provide connectivity to a ground area about 40 km in diameter using LTE.
Project Loon partners with telecom companies to share cellular spectrum. In June 2013, Project Loon was tested in New Zealand. Google says the results of this pilot test and several other tests elsewhere in the world, “are being used to improve the technology in preparation for the next stages of the project”.
Sri Lanka will be the first country to be covered by Loon, though no launch date is known.
Both Facebook and Google have said they don’t want to become service providers. But US-based academic Vivek Wadhwa says when free Wi-Fi (or affordable Internet) starts covering the globe in 3-4 years, traditional telecom service providers are bound to feel threatened.
Source: http://indianexpress.com/article/explained/internet-from-the-skies/