Google is expected to launch "Project Loon" or balloons that will bring billions of people in remote areas wireless Internet access within a year.
After working with local cellular providers, Google X Lab has tested balloon-connected wireless Internet for over a year and is on schedule to provide Internet via the air to people on the ground by using a fleet of balloons that circle the globe.
"In the next year or so, we should have a semi-permanent ring of balloons somewhere in the Southern Hemisphere," says Astro Teller, head of the "moonshot factory" Google X Lab during a EmTech conference in Cambridge.
Google's network of balloons fly twice as high as commercial airplanes to provide a solution for the two-thirds of the world's population currently without access to affordable and fast Internet connections. The balloons are planned to build a ring that sends 22 Mbps to customized antennas on the ground, which connect to ground stations of local Internet service providers at 5 Mbps to mobile phones.
"The issue is how many people can you support with a balloon?" Dan Olds, an analyst with The Gabriel Consulting Group, asks. "With Skype, through compression and stuff, their minimum recommendation for a video call is 1.5 Mbps both ways, so one balloon could handle three or four video calls."
The balloons also have the potential to support 100 calls at a time. "Even 100 people will see some problems if they all try to download stuff at the same time," Olds says. "It's a tough technical problem for sure."
Thirty high-altitude balloons were successfully launched above New Zealand in Google's test launch in 2013. The pilot test included 50 users who tried to connect to the Internet using the balloons.
Google X is also credited for coming up with Glass, the wearable computer; the contact lenses that monitor blood glucose levels; and self-driving cars.
