Project Foon: Case Study: Project Loon
INTERNET FOR ALL – PROJECT LOON
Akash James
Engineering Student,
Reva Institute of Technology and Management.
ABSTRACT:
Connectivity to the Internet is a vital technological requirement. It’s arguably one of the best and most transformative technological advancements of our species. However, approximately 4.3 billion people who still live in rural and remote regions where telecommunication is scarce or absent are not gifted with a connection to the World Wide Web. These are mainly due to terrestrial hurdles like dense forests, deserts, mountains, etc. These restrict construction of cell towers, radio antennas and other connectivity based infrastructure. This is a problem, isn’t it?
To eliminate this problem, straight out of Google X lab, comes another ambitious project to bring everyone up to power with the Internet. Named Project Loon, it focuses on a simple idea of releasing a swarm of balloons up into the stratosphere that would beam connection speeds as fast as the modern day 3G networks or even faster. This opens a wide range of …show more content…
The unofficial development on Project Loon began back in 2011 at the Google X lab. This led to the invention of high-altitude stratosphere balloons, equipped with a radio antenna, GPS system, sensors and other equipment that was designed to stay up for long durations of time and travel around beaming signals down at the receivers. The first experiment was carried out in 2013 in New Zealand. 30 balloons brought connectivity to about 50 people and the balloons travelled in an area of 10,000 km2. It proved to be successful and it was plausible for a global level launch. To understand the functioning and technology gone into Project Loon better, let’s break it down into
Akash James
Engineering Student,
Reva Institute of Technology and Management.
ABSTRACT:
Connectivity to the Internet is a vital technological requirement. It’s arguably one of the best and most transformative technological advancements of our species. However, approximately 4.3 billion people who still live in rural and remote regions where telecommunication is scarce or absent are not gifted with a connection to the World Wide Web. These are mainly due to terrestrial hurdles like dense forests, deserts, mountains, etc. These restrict construction of cell towers, radio antennas and other connectivity based infrastructure. This is a problem, isn’t it?
To eliminate this problem, straight out of Google X lab, comes another ambitious project to bring everyone up to power with the Internet. Named Project Loon, it focuses on a simple idea of releasing a swarm of balloons up into the stratosphere that would beam connection speeds as fast as the modern day 3G networks or even faster. This opens a wide range of …show more content…
The unofficial development on Project Loon began back in 2011 at the Google X lab. This led to the invention of high-altitude stratosphere balloons, equipped with a radio antenna, GPS system, sensors and other equipment that was designed to stay up for long durations of time and travel around beaming signals down at the receivers. The first experiment was carried out in 2013 in New Zealand. 30 balloons brought connectivity to about 50 people and the balloons travelled in an area of 10,000 km2. It proved to be successful and it was plausible for a global level launch. To understand the functioning and technology gone into Project Loon better, let’s break it down into