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Google's sister company leaves testing to sign its first commercial contract
One of the experimental divisions of Google's parent company, Alphabet, officially comes out of the shadows with its first commercial contract. Project Loon has announced a partnership with Kenyan telecom operator Telkom Kenya to make Internet accessible to remote areas of the country, via hot air balloons.
Rather than broadcast the network via fixed antennas, heavy infrastructure and inefficient in case of relief, Project Loon uses helium balloons, equipped with antennas and powered by photovoltaic panels. They fly in the stratosphere at 20 kilometers above sea level, well above storms and airliners. Each can provide 4G over 5000 square kilometers of surface, the size of a department like the Ardennes or the Lot. An artificial intelligence raises or lowers the balloon in the sky to take advantage of drafts, and thus move optimally. The balloon has a life span of six months before making a controlled descent to the mainland.
Founded in 2011, Loon comes this month to leave the lap of "X", the division of Alphabet charged the most "exotic" projects of the firm, to become a wholly owned subsidiary of the group. It follows the footsteps of Waymo, an entity working on autonomous cars, which is also born inside X. Prior to this commercial contract, Loon's technology was only in a trial phase. The startup had provided the internet in Peru following floods in early 2017 and Puerto Rico after the mid-year hurricanes.
Linking the Internet to billions of potential users
The four billion humans still Private Internet users represent a considerable potential clientele for the Web giants. Facebook had also tried to connect remote areas with its Aquila drone project. The latter has recently been abandoned, the Zuckerberg firm preferring to leave the hardware aspects to specialized companies to better focus on the software side of the Internet distribution.
With a 77% Internet penetration rate according to the national communications authority, Kenya is already one of the best connected countries in Africa. But with mountains sometimes exceeding 5000 meters, many areas are still without a network. While the contract is generally welcomed with enthusiasm, it also raises concerns about the establishment of a possible monopoly. Users covered only by Loon would not be able to compete if prices were too high. A problem, when you know that 1 GB of mobile data costs on average 18% of the monthly income on the African continent.
This was not the first incursion of Project Loon in Kenya. In 2017, one of the ten hot-air balloons deployed on test in the country crashed on a farm following high winds. Overwhelmed by the hundreds of curious people approaching the machine, the farmer concerned had threatened Alphabet to lodge a complaint.
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