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For a long time now, big tech companies have been trying to make it possible for remote or underserved areas to connect to the Internet. Although Facebook closed his program, he planned to do it with big drones called Aquila. But Alphabet's Loon is still in the game, using massive balloons to convey connectivity to the ground.
Today, Loon has announced it has taken a new step by creating a linked network covering 621.3 miles using seven balloons.
The experiment was conducted in the skies about 12.5 miles above Nevada, Loon wrote in a blog post. Using the seven balloons, the team sent packets of data totaling 621.3 miles. And it was just the beginning. A few weeks later, connectivity reached 373 miles using only two balloons.
"The thing with people, is that they tend to live everywhere," Loon wrote in his blog. "Even with the expanded coverage area of our balloons – 20 to 30 times that of a traditional ground-based system – some people live outside of one of our balloons adjacent to a ground ground link. . If we can extend our reach by passing this connection through a network of balloons, such as a cosmic football team that advances the ball in the sky, we can cover many more people.
In the end, the idea is to use balloons to bring connectivity to areas without Internet infrastructure. Loon plans to launch its service commercially next year.
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