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from the successful-rollout-is-still-up-in-the-air dept.
Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
Alphabet's Loon project said Thursday that its balloons will bring internet to remote parts of Kenya next year.
This'll be the project's first deal in Africa, Reuters reports, and it'll see Loon working with Telkom Kenya to get high-speed internet to the East African country's rural and suburban populations.
Loon became its own company only last week -- having started in 2016 as a project at X, Google parent Alphabet's research-and-development facility. It uses high-flying balloons powered by on-board solar panels as Wi-Fi carriers to deliver signals from above.
The balloons float at 60,000 feet (20 km) above sea level -- high over air traffic, wildlife and weather events.
[...] Last year, Alphabet teamed with AT&T to bring limited internet access to storm-ravaged Puerto Rico.
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 2) by legont on Monday July 23 2018, @02:40AM
I tried to find the answer and could not; in details anyway. It appears that balloon transmitter is powerful enough so regular phones can get LTE data directly from it. On the way back it looks like "cooperation with providers" is the key. I haven't found it written down, but the only way I imagine is that cell providers will deliver packets to Google regular way. Since upload traffic is typically way lower, it may work (similar to satellite offers).
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.