Project Loon

If you are reading this, you are lucky to have access to one of the biggest luxuries of the world and that is "Internet". Many of you might wonder "How is internet a luxury?" Well here are some quick facts to answer this.

As of today, it is estimated to number 7.094 billion by the United States Census Bureau. According to Wikipedia, by the end of 2012, 35% of world came online. This means 4.61 billion people are still living a life without internet. One out of three people use internet or have used it just enough to make up to this global count.

And yet most of us can not even imagine what it would have been like to grow up without internet.

This global count increases every year. But at the current pace this increase is rather slow to be considered an increase, considering the utility of internet globally.

To increase this progress multi fold, Google Inc. has initiated a revolutionary project namely "Project Loon".
The name loon is taken from the balloons used for this project. A network of huge helium-filled balloons each 15 meter in diameter, flying at an altitude twice that of a flying airplane will act as a hub to provide internet access.

Each balloon will provide internet access to an area of about 40 Kilometers in diameter with access speeds equivalent to 3G network. The balloons will sail with the blowing wind and will be controlled by a ground station.

Now listen to the best part of this story right from Todd Rowe, managing director of global channel sales at Google, "We have a number of different countries who have expressed interest in this, including India. It might take a while before the technology, described as a "network in the sky" is deployed in other countries. We don't have a specified timeframe yet because we want to finish the pilot in New Zealand and make sure it is working as effectively as we would like it to."

For a developing country like India with connectivity as major setback, this is the one very essential element towards a digital era. After all India stands third highest in terms of internet users in the world after China and US. At the very least, we, the people of India, can finally hope to get internet access at all places where there is not one now. This will support the nation during disasters when all means of communication are destroyed.

To know more visit the website "Project Loon". This video explains the technology behind Project Loon.