Google is floating it’s future and banking on success. Project Loon seeks to fill in coverage gaps with internet connectivity world wide by creating networks using balloons hovering at the edge of space. How high you might ask? Twice as high as your standard commercial airline flies. According to their website, “Project Loon balloons travel approximately 20 km above the Earth’s surface in the stratosphere. Winds in the stratosphere are stratified, and each layer of wind varies in speed and direction. Project Loon uses software algorithms to determine where its balloons need to go, then moves each one into a layer of wind blowing in the right direction. By moving with the wind, the balloons can be arranged to form one large communications network.”
The hope is that these blimps or balloons will connect people in remote areas and to bring people back online in natural disasters when terrestrial networks have been damaged. Using LTE, each balloon would connect 40 km in diameter on the ground. Thereby providing, faster, easier and cheaper internet access across the globe. “Google has already run tests with several different telcos — Vodafone in New Zealand, Telstra in Australia, and Telefonica in Latin America — and is working on commercial deals with other new network operators.” as reported by Business Insider.
While the video from the project’s You Tube Channel is very lovey-dovey and kumbaya, this isn’t a humanitarian effort on Google’s part. As over 60% of the global population does not have internet access, Google’s betting on cashing in on the new audience. According to Fortune magazine, “Google VP and Project Loon lead Mike Cassidy sees it like this: if the balloons bring Internet access to just 5% of the 4.5 billion people currently without it— and Google gets $5 a month from each user—that would mean tens of billions in revenue for the company.”
In the age of globalization, internet access to all provides access to new markers and buyers for your products and services. How will you play in the ever expanding global marketplace?
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