Google is teaming up with Sri Lanka to provide 3G mobile Internet to the entire nation using Google's Project Loon high-altitude balloons:
"The entire Sri Lankan island – every village from (southern) Dondra to (northern) Point Pedro – will be covered with affordable high speed Internet using Google Loon's balloon technology," said Samaraweera, who is also IT minister. Officials said local Internet service providers will have access to the balloons, reducing their operational costs.
Muhunthan Canagey, head of local authority the Information and Communication Technology Agency, said he expected Google to have finished sending up the balloons by next March. "Service providers will be able to access higher speeds and improve the quality of their existing service once the balloon project is up and running," Canagey told AFP. "We can also expect prices to come down," he said after he signed the agreement with Michael Cassidy, a Google vice president.
[...] Google plans to keep the balloons aloft in the stratosphere for 100 days, transmitting Internet signals to the ground, and with their movements guided by an algorithmic formula. Tests were carried out in New Zealand in 2013.
Official figures show there are 2.8 million mobile Internet connections and 606,000 fixed line Internet subscribers among Sri Lanka's more than 20 million population. Sri Lanka became the first country in South Asia to introduce mobile phones in 1989 and the first to roll out a 3G network in 2004. It was also the first in the region to unveil a 4G network two years ago.
Although the balloons are designed to provide 3G speeds to people on the ground, they will communicate with cell networks using higher speed transmitters. From EconomyNext:
Deputy Investment Promotions Minister Eran Wickremeratne told EconomyNext that each ballon could cover about 5,000 square kilometres and with a little over a dozen the entire country could be covered. "They have a finite lifetime and you have to keep sending them up," he said. "So coverage is one side, access also means the cost, which has to be affordable." The Google Loon balloons have LTE standard transceivers which can connect to cell phone networks filling gaps in their networks. "Service providers will enter in to agreements with "floating cell towers" that will be shared bringing down transmission costs leading to further reductions in cost of service provision," de Silva said.
[...] Cell phone signals generally propagate on a line of sight basis and there can be gaps in mountainous areas where it is physically not possible or in other sparsely populated or wilderness areas where it does not make economic sense to cover. Google Loon balloons are expected to navigate in the stratosphere and fill gaps in coverage.
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Google may be planning to deploy its Project Loon balloons above the United States:
Google appears to be planning to test its Project Loon internet balloons across the entire US, according to recent documents filed with the FCC.
The company has asked the Federal Communications Commission for a license to test experimental radios that use wireless spectrum in the millimeter bandwidth in all 50 states and Puerto Rico. Google said it wants to begin the tests on January 1 for a period of 24 months.
The testing could indicate that Google is broadening its ambitions for providing consumers with internet access through the special balloons developed in its secretive X Labs.
Project Loon is Google's plan to operate a fleet of solar-powered balloons — flying at an altitude of 60,000 to 90,000 feet — that are capable of beaming internet access down to the earth. Google has described the project as a way to bring internet access to people in developing economies and regions of the world that lack communications infrastructure.
[...] More tellingly, the filing notes that Google's latest request for an experimental license is for continued development of previous tests, in which the company also acquired experimental licenses from the FCC. According to the previous filings that Google references, those tests were conducted in Winnemucca, Nevada.
Winnemucca is a remote town of roughly 7,000 in Nevada, and its attractions include a small brothel district known as "The Line" and an annual Basque festival, according to Wikipedia. But in August 2014, one month before Google's first FCC request for a license to test in Winnemucca, the published minutes of the Winnemucca City Council contain a proposal to let Google use its airport industrial park as a "temporary balloon launching facility."
The most recent Google FCC filings indicated that Google wants to use frequencies in the 71 GHz to 76 GHz range and in the 81 GHz to 86 GHz range.
Previously: Google Releases New Project Loon Video
Google to Provide Sri Lanka with 3G Internet Using Balloons
One of the Google X "moonshots", a plan to use solar-powered drone aircraft to provide Internet connectivity to rural areas, has been axed. Some of the engineers may be reassigned to Project Loon and other efforts:
Back in 2014 Google (now Alphabet) bought Titan Aerospace, a company specializing in solar-powered drones that could fly at high altitudes for long periods of time. The goal was to offer internet access to rural areas that lacked connectivity by beaming it down from on high. In that way it was similar to another moon shot, Project Loon, and to Facebook's Aquila.
Today, however, Alphabet confirmed to Business Insider that it had ended its exploration of solar-powered drones. In fact according to a spokesperson, the project ended almost a year ago. That would make it part of a big group of setbacks for X, formerly X Labs, the incubator for wild ideas that has suffered under the strict financial discipline being imposed by Alphabet and its CFO, Ruth Porat. Bloomberg offered a rundown of the high-level departures that have occurred since the creation of Alphabet as a holding company and the separation of X from Google
Also at 9to5Google and Bloomberg.
Previously: Google Releases New Project Loon Video
Google to Provide Sri Lanka with 3G Internet Using Balloons
Facebook's Laser Drones v Google's Net-Beaming Balloons
Google May Test Balloon Internet Service Over the United States
Google Testing Project Loon: Concerns Are Without "Factual Basis"
Google Asks for Airspace Access for Internet Balloons
(Score: 3, Insightful) by vali.magni on Sunday August 02 2015, @03:33AM
Google and Facebook have the perfect mechanism to control and manipulate the material that the masses can access, and what they can send out. They are targeting people with very little or no education, who are typically the sort of people easily manipulated before elections and for communal reasons in Sri Lanka and surrounding countries.
Facebook's initiative to provide "free" internet through Reliance telecom in India is another such scheme, where the user can access a restricted set of websites approved by Facebook.
What better platform could we hope for if we want to subtly influence elections, preferences for certain brands of goods, opinions about certain communities or religions, and so on?
At the end of the day both google and Facebook are in the business of making money - pardon me if I am increasingly sceptical about these initiatives but let's see where it leads us in 5-10 years.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2015, @07:07AM
Indeed. Rename the country to Spy Lanka...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2015, @12:31PM
I don't get it. Google is going to keep the balloons up for 100 days, and they expect the nation's Internet business to change stuff like pricing? Like how the price of gasoline goes up for any excuse, and only comes down after, say, five blue moons in a row.