Google's deployment of Project Loon will soon be a reality as the engineers have shown great optimism after witnessing a significant growth in the project over the past year.
Large balloons beaming internet to remote places in the world at impressive speeds might have seemed ridiculous a year ago, but thanks to Google's Project Loon, the fantasy will soon become a reality. Project Loon leaders have revealed that a fleet of high-flying balloons will be ready and out on trial in more than one country within the next year. Speaking with the Wired, the project's leaders shared their insights, everything from the past year experiences and the future of the nearly impossible project.
The world's largest internet search company will soon hold the title of the only company with the capability to offer internet in remotest places around the world, if Facebook does not speed up its Internet.org efforts. Google plans to float as many as 400 balloons that can go around the earth at an altitude twice as high as commercial planes and continue operations for 100 or more days. Previous tests have been successful, as these balloons have traveled more than a million and a half kilometers around the world in just 22 days. These balloons were able to deliver internet speeds of 22 MBps (176Mbps) to ground antennae and 5MBps (20Mbps) to mobile phones. The speeds are impressively fast, but Wired said they will slow down drastically once the traffic on the network increases.
Since the first year of experiments, Google's balloons have improved enormously. They started off with the balloons' flight duration lasting for a few days at most and download speeds averaging at one or two megabits per second. But that has changed significantly as Astro Teller, head of the division, pointed out during his interview with the Wired.
"This is the poster child for Google X," Teller said. "The balloons are delivering 10x more bandwidth, 10x steer-ability, and are staying up 10x as long. That's the kind of progress that can only happen a few more times until we're in a problematically good place."
Google also hopes to fill in some dead spots where the internet access is unavailable in developed countries and major cities. It plans to charge more to offer service in such areas. While it is aimed at providing internet to poor and rural places, Google also said it will charge some of its wealthy users who want to access services in remote places by asking them to pay for expensive roaming plans.
Google may also have bigger plans for its internet for the world initiative. Recently, the company acquired drone maker Titan Aerospace and plans to build 180 satellites and launch them in space to provide internet access to unreached areas.
