In the hopes of bringing internet access to even the most remote corners of the globe, Google parent Alphabet’s ‘Loon’ project has taken a big step closer.
Alphabet said artificial intelligence-infused navigation software has significantly sped up plans, helping to smartly guide high-altitude balloons to improve coverage.
While the firm has not said when it expects the balloons to be up and running, Astro Teller, head of the team at Alphabet unit X said: ‘We are looking to move quickly, but to move thoughtfully.’
Teller said: ‘Our timelines are starting to move up on how we can do more for the world sooner.’
The acceleration was credited to software leaps that allow internet-serving balloons to ride high-altitude winds to ideal locations or loop in patterns that create consistent webs of internet coverage in the sky.
‘We’ve been working to make the balloons smarter; almost like a game of chess with the winds,’ Teller said.
WHAT IS PROJECT LOON AND HOW DO THE BALLOONS WORK? Project Loon is a network of balloons travelling on the edge of space, designed to connect people to the internet in remote parts of the world. The balloons travel approximately 12 miles (20km) above the Earth’s surface in the stratosphere. Winds in the stratosphere are stratified, and each layer of wind varies in speed and direction, so Project Loon uses software algorithms to determine where its balloons need to go. It then moves each one into a layer of wind blowing in the right direction. By moving with the wind, the balloons can be arranged to form one large communications network. Winds in the stratosphere are stratified, and each layer of wind varies in speed and direction, so Project Loon uses algorithms to determine where its balloons need to go. It then moves each one into a layer of wind blowing in the right direction (illustrated)The inflatable part of the balloon is called a balloon envelope made from sheets of polyethylene plastic that are 49ft (15 metres) wide and 40ft (12 metres) tall when inflated. The balloons harness power from card table-sized solar panels that dangle below them, and they can gather enough charge in four hours to power them for a day.Each balloon can provide connectivity to a ground area of around 25 miles (40km) in diameter using LTE, also referred to as 4G, technology. Project Loon is partnering with telecommunications companies and mobile networks to share cellular spectrum.Ground stations with internet capabilities around 60 miles (100km) apart bounce signals up to the balloons.The signals can then hop forward, from one balloon to the next, along a backbone of up to five balloons.
He expected Loon to be partnering in coming months with telecom companies to provide internet to ‘real users,’ in a step up from tests done to see how well the high-floating technology works with networks on the ground.
Teller declined to specify where Loon might first be integrated into telecommunications networks providing service to customers.
‘We are not going to all of a sudden be everywhere,’ Teller said.
‘We intend to be part of an ecosystem – in any country where we are doing testing we would work with a local telco.’
Part of the money-making vision for Loon would be to get revenue from telecom operators for extending their reach.
Teller said Loon is one of the more mature projects at X and that it ‘would be a natural state to graduate into its own company’ but there were not plans at the moment for that to happen.
The word of speedy progress came the same day that the venture to beam the internet to the ground via balloon hit a legal snag in Sri Lanka that could see the project abandoned on the island.
Project Loon uses roaming balloons to beam internet coverage and planned to connect Sri Lanka’s 21 million people to the web, even those in remote connectivity black spots.
But just a year after testing began in Sri Lanka, regulators have been unable to allocate Google a radio frequency for the airborne venture without breaching international regulations.
‘There are lots of places excited to run experiments with us,’ Teller said.
‘We encourage that, but there are lots of agencies and we need to dot ‘I’s and cross ‘t’s.’
He added that Loon planned to ‘do things by the book’ in any country where it is active, using balloons to get internet signals far and wide, while local telecom companies tap into the network from the ground.
The first public launch of Loon took place in New Zealand in 2013, when the project was in an early experimental phase.
Alphabet recently said that it gave up on its internet drone project, called Titan, about a year ago, to focus its resources on Loon where it saw more promise of success.
The economics and technical feasibility of balloons are seen as a more promising way to connect rural and remote parts of the world to the internet, according to X.
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