Google will make the Internet a balloon - Gazeta Wyborcza

It will be a fleet of stratospheric balloons, and thus rising more than 20 km above the Earth’s surface, where it already do not fly airplanes.

The project tests Loon 30 balloons will be released in New Zealand and will be the drift of the island carried by air currents (at this altitude that blow from west to east). Each of them will provide access to the Internet (similar rate as in 3G networks) in an area of ??40 km in diameter, on which it will fly. Access will test the 50 selected people in the region of Canterbury in New Zealand.

Of course, the combination of the breaks, the balloon soar further and you will be outside the reach of the antenna. But Google’s vision of balloons floating above the Earth will be so much that it will provide solid coverage in areas where the company will offer this service.

It is mainly parts of the world, which are within the telecommunications infrastructure or have it poorly developed (by Google applies to two-thirds of the world’s population). Satellite phones, which today are already everywhere, do not solve the problem, because they are very expensive and inaccessible for most. In the future, 3G balloons can also be useful on sites of natural disasters, where terrestrial infrastructure is destroyed.

But some experts doubt that it can sensibly navigate and control the flight of balloons, troubled capricious winds.

Each balloon has a diameter of 15 m and is filled with a gas lighter than air. Below them is suspended radio antenna, on-board computer and control system of solar panels to supply electricity (at night will work on batteries).

But how to make balloon was torn by the wind to where it is just I need? – This is the main difficulty to be overcome – says Richard DeVaul, project manager at Google. – Must be so intelligently control their height to the corresponding winds were catching. It will resemble the work of coordinating ballet choreographer. The brains of this operation will be a supercomputer.

Of course, the control center of the balloon network will be in contact with the control of the airspace in the event that one of the balloons fell, and was en route aircraft, what can always happen.

– They signal lights and radar reflectors, so we believe represent a very low risk to aviation – and Richard DeVaul. – No one also did not fall on his head, because he will be brought back to Earth in a controlled manner.