After the just recently concluded event that led to the launch of Pixel smartphones, Pixelbook, Daydream view 2 and lots more , the internet giant is gunning for the next project of the year called ‘Project loon’, an internet project that will be powered by balloon.
Under the ‘Project Loon’, the internet giant intends to use balloons floating at a height of 20 kilometres above earth’s surface for transmission of internet services to an already selected location. Project loon is faced with issues like headwinds from the telecommunications department, with respect to rules and regulations from the American Civil Aviation perspective which will be looked into for monitoring from next month by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).
According to source from the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), the internet has requested the government to allocate frequencies which will be a 700 KHz spectrum band to help test run the service but until recently the DoT didn’t grant the request and proved adamant. However, last year the government approved the testing of the Project Loon and also have formed a committee. The department has also requested that Google partner with a telecom operator to test its services to resolve the issues pertaining to spectrum.
Under the ‘Project Loon’, Google would use balloons floating at a height of 20 kilometres above earth’s surface to transmit internet services across a geographical area and the project has so far been tested in New Zealand, US and Brazil. The technology was used for the LTE service testing and it has the power to replace mobile towers as it can direct signals on 4G mobile phones.
Earlier this year, Project Loon went into partnership with a South American telecom operator Telefonica, to provide basic internet connectivity for people in flood zone areas around Lima, Chimbote, Piura with over 160GB data within the 40, 000 square km of the affected area.
According to the Project Loon website, Google claims its aim is to launch and maintain the fleet of balloon that will be able to provide internet service to users on the ground , it also added that with the auto launchers will ensure a safe and consistent launching of the air internet balloon every 30 minutes , and in a statement it reads “We have flown over 19 million km of test flights to date since the project began – with one of our record-breaking balloons surviving for 190 days aloft in the stratosphere.
The company further added that the high speed internet will be able to transmit to the nearest balloon which will be done by the project telecommunication partners then it will be relayed across the balloon network and finally back to the users on the ground, also added the company said “We have demonstrated data transmission between balloons over 100 km apart in the stratosphere and back down to people on the ground with connection speeds of up to 10 Mbps, directly to their LTE phones”.
It seems we will be having a floating internet balloon, what more can we ask for? Will not be surprised if a walking internet device will be tested in the future.
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