Google Project Loon

Google has began developing Project
Loon , an experimental program to
provide free internet access to people in
remote rural areas, using high-altitude
balloons floating in the stratosphere.
After test runs in New Zealand, Brazil,
and the US, Project Loon is finally ready
to balloon.

Project Loon, the once seemingly
crazy idea of floating giants
balloons into the stratosphere to
provide Internet access to remote
areas, is now coming to the United States.

Project Loon head Mike Cassidy said Monday that Google will conduct
tests in the Northern Hemisphere
starting later this year. He made the
comments at MIT Technology
Review magazine’s EmTech Digital
conference in San Francisco.
The U.S. isn’t next on the list for
Loon coverage, if only because all
but about 10 million people here
have Internet access–though Cassidy
noted that “even in my house, I
don’t have a cell signal.”

Google’s chief goal for Loon remains
to provide access to much more
underserved areas of the world such
as Africa, where only 10% of people
have Internet access, and Brazil,
where kids often climb high in trees
with cell phones to get a better
signal. Overall, most 4 billion people
world wide have no Internet access
and most of them don’t even have
the capability to get it because
there is absolutely no coverage.

It is noted that after the meeting of PM Narendra modi and Google CEO in sillicon valley this project will also give their service in indian villages for internet connectivity to more than 5000 villages.