Project Loon's network of balloon communicate with special ground stations.
(Credit: Screenshot by Eric Mack/CNET)
Google has officially announced “Project Loon,” its plan to connect the entire world to the Internet that uses a decidedly 19th century technology: Balloons.
According to a post on the official company blog:
We believe that it might actually be possible to build a ring of balloons, flying around the globe on the stratospheric winds, that provides Internet access to the earth below. It’s very early days, but we’ve built a system that uses balloons, carried by the wind at altitudes twice as high as commercial planes, to beam Internet access to the ground at speeds similar to today’s 3G networks or faster.
Google says it hopes the floating network could be used to connect remote, rural and underserved areas, something I personally would appreciate greatly, although I don’t imagine my neighborhood would be at the top of Google’s list to target with Project Loon. The name itself comes from Google’s own acknowledgment that the plan sounds a bit crazy… like a loon, some might say.
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