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Google Floats Balloons For Free Wi-Fi

Posted by Soulskill on from the shannon-hartley-bernoulli-theorem dept.

New submitter BrokenHalo writes "Google has revealed that it has 30 balloons floating over New Zealand in a project to bring free Wi-Fi to earthquake-stricken, rural or poor areas. They're calling it Project Loon. '[W]e’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. As a result, we hope balloons could become an option for connecting rural, remote, and underserved areas, and for helping with communications after natural disasters.' Eventually, as the balloons move across the stratosphere, consumers in participating countries along the 40th parallel in the Southern Hemisphere could tap into the service. The technology will be trialled in Australia next year, possibly in Tasmania. If the latter happens to be true, then you'll probably hear the telcos' screams in New York."

25 of 115 comments (clear)

  1. I thought that Loonies... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    were Canadian dollar coins.

    1. Re:I thought that Loonies... by ArcadeMan · · Score: 2

      AC is not a troll. Off-topic maybe, but not troll.

      --
      Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
  2. Tech specs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Each balloon is 15m (49.2ft) in diameter - the length of a small plane - and filled with lifting gases. Electronic equipment hangs underneath including radio antennas, a flight computer, an altitude control system and solar panels to power the gear. Google aims to fly the balloons in the stratosphere, 20km (12 miles) or more above the ground, which is about double the altitude used by commercial aircraft and above controlled airspace. Each should stay aloft for about 100 days and provide connectivity to an area stretching 40km in diameter below as they travel in a west-to-east direction. [1]

    1. Re:Tech specs by aliquis · · Score: 2

      Helium? I think we are wasting so much.

    2. Re:Tech specs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Each balloon is 15m (49.2ft) in diameter - the length of a small plane - and filled with lifting gases. Electronic equipment hangs underneath including radio antennas, a flight computer, an altitude control system and solar panels to power the gear. Google aims to fly the balloons in the stratosphere, 20km (12 miles) or more above the ground, which is about double the altitude used by commercial aircraft and above controlled airspace. Each should stay aloft for about 100 days and provide connectivity to an area stretching 40km in diameter below as they travel in a west-to-east direction. [1]

      Can normal 802.11 b/g/ac devices talk to a base station 20,000 meters away?

    3. Re:Tech specs by jones_supa · · Score: 4, Informative

      It was me. I even submitted another version of this particular news item with those specs included, but someone else's submission was chosen instead. Ah well. :)

    4. Re:Tech specs by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 3, Informative

      Can normal 802.11 b/g/ac devices talk to a base station 20,000 meters away?

      TFA says nothing about 802.11 (aka Wi-Fi) - it seems that was an invention of the submitter.

      From the video:

      The balloons communicate with specialised internet antennas on the ground.

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    5. Re:Tech specs by __aaltlg1547 · · Score: 2

      Is there any reason not to use hydrogen for this application? It's much cheaper. These balloons run unattended. They could be designed to automatically vent their hydrogen if their altitude gets too low. That would prevent any danger to people on the ground.

    6. Re:Tech specs by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 4, Informative

      Helium? I think we are wasting so much.

      The market is already fixing this. Helium prices are rising. The primary reason for this is shale gas. Helium is a byproduct of natural gas production. Some gas wells in Texas contain as much as 4% helium. Gas wells outside the USA contain very little helium, making America the dominant producer. But America is switching to shale gas, which contains very little helium, and the helium producing wells are being shut down because they can't operate profitably with historically low gas prices. So helium prices are climbing, and frivolous uses are being curtailed. Disneyland Tokyo has already stopped selling helium balloons of cartoon characters.

       

    7. Re:Tech specs by Brianwa · · Score: 3, Insightful

      No, your laptop by itself couldn't, but the protocol is certainly capable of handling the distance if you tweak the timeout settings and have a powerful radio and a good antenna setup.

      They probably wouldn't actually use wifi though, some of the cellphone-based standards are more suitable for this type of system.

      To use this you would probably need an antenna and modem set up on your house, much like satellite Internet. It would still be a challenge though, I've streamed data off a balloon before and we were tracking it manually with a high gain antenna and used extremely slow data rates. They're going to be limited to solar power too, which limits their radio output power a lot.

  3. you'll probably hear the telcos' screams by mcgrew · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I heard about the balloons this morning and thought hey, Google wants as many people as possible to see their ads. It's good for Google AND good for me, I applaud this.

    --
    Free Martian Whores!
    1. Re:you'll probably hear the telcos' screams by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you're referring to as Google, is in fact, NSA/Google, or as I've recently taken to calling it, NSA plus Google.

      - RMS

  4. In the end? by hedgemage · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Ok, I skimmed through both articles in search of one answer.
    What happens to the balloons when they inevitably drift out of the intended coverage area and then crash? This technology is useful for a short-term disaster relief solution, but over the long term you're going to end up with a lot of balloons and electronic packages coming down all over the world.

    1. Re:In the end? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      Ok, I skimmed through both articles in search of one answer.
        What happens to the balloons when they inevitably drift out of the intended coverage area and then crash? This technology is useful for a short-term disaster relief solution, but over the long term you're going to end up with a lot of balloons and electronic packages coming down all over the world.

      Evidently, you didn't skim enough. From TFA:
      '
      But using free-floating balloons introduces another problem: how to ensure they are where they are supposed to be.
      "We didn't want them to go just wherever the winds took them, we wanted them to go where the internet is needed on the ground," said Mr DeVaul.
      "You have to cause them to move up or down just a little bit through the stratosphere to catch the appropriate wind - which is how we steer them.
      "So we have to choreograph a whole ballet of this fleet, and that requires some impressive computing science and a whole lot of computing power."
      The balloons will communicate with Google's "mission control" where computer servers will carry out the calculations needed to keep them on track, monitored by a small number of engineers.
      The software makes adjustments to each balloon's altitude to take advantage of forecast wind conditions, and nudges the balloons up or down to find a more favourable stream when the predictions are not accurate.
      '

    2. Re:In the end? by ian_mackereth · · Score: 4, Informative
      From Google's page:

      A parachute attached to the top of the envelope allows for a controlled descent and landing whenever a balloon is ready to be taken out of service.

    3. Re:In the end? by Jeremi · · Score: 2

      Most will fall in the sea. Then they will get eaten by turtles. Think of the turtles...

      Wi-fi enabled turtles, hacking into through the Google backbone and taking over the Internet. You'll long for the good old days when it was only the NSA...

      --


      I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
  5. Mike's talk by ZDroid · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Mike Cassidy, head of the project, said:

    "There are many terrestrial challenges to internet connectivity – jungles, archipelagos, mountains. There are also major cost challenges. Right now, for example, in most of the countries in the southern hemisphere, the cost of an internet connection is more than a month's income."

    - Guardian

  6. They need... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    69 more balloons, and they should be red.

    1. Re:They need... by Mystakaphoros · · Score: 3, Funny

      69 more balloons, and they should be red.

      I think that project is being run by Google.de

  7. Re:The Eye of Google by cfsops · · Score: 2

    Some would argue that 20km or 20,000km above is, indeed, "over [my] house".

    From the wiki article, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_rights:

    "the Latin phrase Cuius est solum, eius est usque ad caelum et ad inferos ("For whoever owns the soil, it is theirs up to Heaven and down to Hell.")"

    In addition, the so-called "drone debate" has led to things like this: http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/01/31/oregon-drone-bill-would-claim-the-airspace-above-your-shoestrings

  8. Re:stratosphere? by jones_supa · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It's almost funny how the summary claims that this is based on WiFi. It would be impossible even with specialized antennas and very high transmit powers.

  9. 3G? by seven+of+five · · Score: 2

    Balloon is too high for someone to receive a WiFi signal at ground level.

    1. Re:3G? by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 2

      Indeed, and the article says nothing about Wi-Fi - the submitter added that in presumably because he thinks it means "any wireless data connection." TFA also isn't clear on how it's done, but one of the videos does mention specialised ground antennas.

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
  10. Political complications by Beryllium+Sphere(tm) · · Score: 2

    Imagine the tantrum North Korea will throw when one of these drifts through its airspace and gives the population unfiltered Internet access.

    They're not the only place that would have an explosion over uncontrolled Internet.

  11. WiFi range by sjames · · Score: 2

    TFA doesn't specify WiFi though the ISM bands are specified. However, it's not impossible that it is WiFi, it has a much longer range than you might think with the right equipment.