"Inside Google's Wildly Ambitious Internet Balloon Project." On a small scale, at least, recent tests in New Zealand have shown the idea, from Google's secretive X Labs, does work. But as odd as Project Loon may sound, there have been successful and promising tests of the program. How does Loon work? Google has many special features to help you find exactly what you're looking for. And again, the company would receive payments for access to the Loon networks. In Loon's case, the premise is so crazy that it just might work. The testers were connecting at 3G speeds. "Introducing Project Loon: Balloon-powered Internet Access." Popular Science. Access can improve an area's economy. That’s where Google Loon comes in. The team has gone to great lengths to analyze problems and make improvements. The company has some issues with getting overflight permissions in a lot of places, so it's largely testing in the Southern Hemisphere where there aren't as many obstacles of that nature [source: Verge]. At one point, temperatures fortuitously dropped to sub-freezing temperatures in South Dakota, one of the balloon manufacturing locations. April 14, 2014. You consent to our cookies if you continue to use our website. A crew used to have to lay the balloons out on tarps and unwrap and partially inflate them before launch, and they could only be launched in winds of 6 miles (9.7 kilometers) per hour or lower. One balloon relays the signal–like a cell tower in the sky–to a ground area many miles in diameter. Their Google Fiber project aims to provide Gigabit service — far faster than the connection speeds we're used to — using fiber optics, and it has pilots of that program going in several areas in the US. The balloons which are 12 meters tall and 15 meters in diameter are designed to withstand tough atmospheric conditions such as pressure differences, high winds, UV exposure, and extreme temperatures. The LTE networking equipment attached to the balloons will work on existing phone companies' cellular spectrums and allow the balloons to communicate directly with cell phones and towers on the ground, eliminating the necessity for installing special ground antennas. Let us have a look at interesting facts about Project Loon. July 29, 2015. Your email address will not be published. The balloons are made of polyethylene plastic around the thickness of a sandwich bag. The project name Project Loon was appropriately chosen because it partially involves balloons and partially because it sounds looney. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. (Oct. 1, 2015) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3234459/Google-Loon-balloon-crashes-yard-home-sleepy-Los-Angeles-suburb.html, Constine, Josh. The lower end of the stratosphere starts between 4 and 12 miles (6 and 20 kilometers) above the surface of the planet (lowest at the poles and highest at the equator), and the upper stratosphere ends at around 31 miles (50 kilometers) above the Earth. Their size necessitates working on them in giant hangars, such as Google's rented space at Moffett Federal Airfield in California. Project lead Rich DeVaul and his team released four latex balloons carrying Linux computing equipment and a WiFi router from the San Luis Reservoir in California. "Project Loon Could Go Commercial Next Year: Google's Giant Balloons Set to Connect Remote Parts of the World to the Internet." Earlier this year a group of telecoms, aviation and technology companies, including Japan’s SoftBank and Alphabet Loon (the Google spin-off business looking after its balloon strategy) formed the HAPS Alliance. Wired. MIT Technology Review. Google is, of course, not sending up balloons alone. TechCrunch. (Oct. 2, 2015) http://techcrunch.com/2015/07/29/not-so-loony-now-is-it/, Popper, Ben. The first official pilot tests occurred in June 2013, with thirty balloons released from New Zealand's Christchurch area. Google plans to retrieve the balloons and equipment whenever possible to reuse or recycle the components. It uses stratospheric winds to float around the sky and solar power to keep it switched on. The first beneficiaries of this high-speed 4G LTE service provided by Google balloons would be people living in rural South America, Southern Africa, and Oceania before it is expanded elsewhere. In June 2014, Linoca Gayoso Castelo Branco, a school in Brazil, was able to connect to the Internet for the first time ever using Project Loon's LTE radio equipped balloons in conjunction with a ground-based antenna on the school roof [sources: Levy, Simonite]. How will Project Loon work In a bid to bring those people online, engineers at Google’s Loon Project announced back in June 2013 that it was building a network of high-altitude balloons to blanket the world’s poor, remote, and rural regions with 4G LTE signals beaming down from the skies to anyone with a 4G device. One even stayed up a record 187 days and circled the planet nine times [source: Raven Aerostar]. Wendy is a super connector who helps businesses find their audience online through outreach, partnerships and networking. Ground engineers steer the balloon up or down through layers to steer it north, south, east, or west. “This is to enable Kenyans access internet as they work from home,” he added. June 14, 2013. But the company has another project aimed at getting basic high-speed Internet to areas that don't have it. In October 2012, one of the test balloons apparently sparked some UFO sighting reports in Kentucky and eventually floated to Canada, where it was lost. August 15, 2013. Google's parent-company Alphabet is scrapping a company set up to build giant balloons to beam the internet to rural areas. Search the world's information, including webpages, images, videos and more. The balloons will float in the next layer up, called the stratosphere. Project Loon is an initiative by Google that involves sending hot air balloons into the stratosphere in order to provide internet access to remote and rural areas. (September 21, 2015) https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=72&v=HOndhtfIXSY, Google. Please copy/paste the following text to properly cite this HowStuffWorks.com article: Copyright © 2021 HowStuffWorks, a division of InfoSpace Holdings, LLC, a System1 Company. Special Loon SIM cards will be necessary to connect to the network. The balloon, controlled by its machine mind, kept veering off course. Facebook started their Connectivity Lab with the purpose of getting low-cost Internet to more people all over the world using technologies such as satellites and drones. Gizmag. The company uses high-altitude balloons in the stratosphere at an altitude of 18km to 26km to create aerial wireless network with upto 4G-LTE speeds. Google Loon uses a special weather balloon. Wall Street Journal. Adding air to the inner balloon increases the mass and causes the balloon to go down, and releasing air causes it to go up. These improvements make keeping enough balloons afloat to form a network more feasible [sources: Metz, Stone]. "Facebook Will Deliver Internet Via Drones With 'Connectivity Lab' Project Powered by Acqhires From Ascenta." While few people are connected, about four billion people, as of late 2015 either can’t afford it as it is prohibitively expensive or they live in an area where it doesn’t exist, or they live in places where the coverage is inadequate. Navigating the high winds: how Loon works. (Sept. 26, 2015) http://www.wired.com/2013/08/googlex-project-loon/, Metz, Cade. Aug 1, 2016 - Google's Project Loon is intended to make Internet access available everywhere. Preliminary testing, dubbed the Icarus tests, began in August 2011. A Google Project Loon balloon on display at the Airforce Museum in Christchurch, New Zealand on June 16, 2013. To increase chances of equipment recovery, the test equipment had the words "harmless science experiment" emblazoned on it with a number to call for a reward (but no mention of Google, since it was still a secret project at that point). Regional telecoms beam signals to the high-altitude balloons. In 2012, the team name was changed to Daedalus (Icarus's dad). Explore. Teachers and students can instantly get access to supplemental classroom materials, and people without access to schools can read textbooks or take classes online. May 29, 2015. People in areas with few or no healthcare workers could potentially receive virtual medical care. These are flight times that were unheard of before, and considered by some experts to be impossible. Playing next. June 16, 2014. Roughly 4 billion people still don't have access as of late 2015. (Sept. 27, 2015) http://www.srh.noaa.gov/jetstream/atmos/layers.htm, Olanoff, Drew. They generate around 100 watts of power in a few hours of full daylight, which is stored in batteries so that the equipment will continue to work in darkness. These balloons float around at an altitude of over 65,000 feet to deliver internet connections of over 10 Mbps to people on the ground. June 9, 2015. Party balloons also wouldn't be able to carry much equipment. Follow. In 2011, when Project Loon began, the International Telecommunication Union reports that there were 2.2 billion people on the Internet. Project Loon was developed with the aim of providing economic internet access across the world. In 2012, they started working with company Raven Aerostar, which manufactures balloons for NASA among others, to help perfect the balloons. "10 Breakthrough Technologies 2015 - Project Loon." Two such panels are mounted facing outward from each other at sharp angles to catch what sunlight they can as the balloons spin. Further tests have been performed in California's Central Valley, Australia, Chile and Brazil, among other places. Loon deploys its high-altitude balloon network into the stratosphere, between altitudes of 18 km and 25 km. Choice of the Right Credit Card Terminal Helps In Processing. These balloons which will hover above our commercial airspace will carry 4G base stations and have the capacity to provide wider signal coverage,” said the President. (September 21, 2015) https://plus.google.com/u/1/+ProjectLoon/videos, Hesterberg, Tanner. To date, Loon’s stratospheric balloons have travelled more than 40 million kilometers around the world and connected hundreds of thousands of people. We increasingly communicate online, and do other mundane things like read the news, check the weather, pay bills and consume entertainment. Why are Advertising Signs so Important for Local Businesses? Learn how Google looks through and organizes all the information on the internet to give you the most useful and relevant Search results in a fraction of a second. Bernadette Johnson "Google Fiber." Google, famous for its many high-tech endeavors, has multiple projects in the works to get high-speed Internet connectivity to the masses. This spring, engineers at Google’s Project Loon will shift to the next phase in a grand plan to bring Internet to everyone. We can also gain education (both outside and inside of school curriculums) to help us improve our prospects, and hunt for jobs well outside the area covered by our local newspapers and labor departments. Google hopes to have Project Loon providing commercial service by late 2016. "Project Loon - How Loon Works." Wired. June 10, 2014. "Google Broadband Balloon Crashes in the Front Yard of a Home in Sleepy Los Angeles Suburb." With the antennas, each balloon wirelessly communicates with dozens of others to form one large communications network. (September 21, 2015) http://time.com/money/3896219/internet-users-worldwide/, Etherington, Darrell. August 20, 2013. (Oct. 3, 2015) https://fiber.google.com/about/, Google. Gas may also be vented automatically if the balloon is in danger of bursting. 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