News

Google WiFi Balloons For Project Loon Being Tested In California

Google’s Project Loon is now being tested in California according to BGR. Despite Bill Gates’ criticism of the project Google are pushing ahead with the project. Google’s Project Loon will improve global internet access by making WiFi available nearly everywhere. Google’s project loon works like this:

Project Loon seeks to put a network of high altitude (20 km) balloons over the world to provide it with wireless internet everywhere. The balloons they intend to use are about 15 metres in diameter but once in the sky they can only be seen with telescopes. Google intends’s to use high altitude winds as a steering mechanism to ensure that all these balloons stay connected, in effect they would be “sailing the stratosphere”.

The complex network which creates the internet connection works by broadcasting the internet from local ground based “internet stations” up to the balloons which then broadcast it back down to special antennas that people can have on their homes. These antennas point upwards to the balloons to receive the connection. The wireless equipment Google are using has been designed to only work within its own Project Loon, as to minimise interference and maximise bandwidth.

The balloons are solar powered and controlled at a central “mission control”. Google has to work very closely with air traffic controls to ensure minimal risk when putting these balloons up or down. Furthermore Google is creating collection points to bring these balloons down for repairs and maintenance. They aim to have bands of Balloons at different latitudes to get the best coverage of the whole world since the Stratospheric winds generally travel West to East.

Image courtesy of Google (Youtube)

Ryan Martin

Disqus Comments Loading...

Recent Posts

Electronic Arts Titles Played for Over 11 Billion Hours in 2024

Electronic Arts (EA) announced today that its games were played for over 11 billion hours…

2 days ago

Just 15% of Steam Gaming Time in 2024 Was Spent on New Releases

Steam's annual end-of-year recap, Steam Replay, provides fascinating insights into gamer habits by comparing individual…

2 days ago

STALKER 2 Gets Massive 110GB Patch With 1800+ Fixes

GSC GameWorld released a major title update for STALKER 2 this seeking, bringing the game…

2 days ago

Intel Unveils Core 200H Processors Based on the Previous Raptor Lake Refresh

Without any formal announcement, Intel appears to have revealed its new Core 200H series processors…

3 days ago

Ubisoft Reportedly Developing a New Quadruple A Game

Ubisoft is not having the best of times, but despite recent flops, the company still…

3 days ago

STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl Update 1.1 Fixes 1,800 Issues and Revamps A-Life 2.0

If you haven’t started playing STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl yet, now might be the…

3 days ago