Google has launched 30 balloons above New Zealand to bring internet to remote areas.
Google calls the effort Project Loon and acknowledges it is “highly experimental” at this stage.
“This is the first time we’ve launched this many balloons (30 this week, in fact) and tried to connect to this many receivers on the ground, and we’re going to learn a lot that will help us improve our technology and balloon design,” Mike Cassidy, head of Project Loon, wrote in a blog post.
This week Google started this pilot program in the Canterbury area of New Zealand with 50 testers trying to connect their balloons.
It works by ground stations connecting to the local Internet infrastructure and beaming signals to the balloons, which are self-powered by solar panels.
“We imagine someday you’ll be able to use your cell phone with your existing service provider to connect to the balloons and get connectivity where there is none today”,Cassidy said.
