Project Loon aims to connect 1 billion in rural areas using high altitude balloons, free space optics and tunable spectrum technology.

Elizabeth Miller Coyne, Managing Editor

October 19, 2016

2 Min Read
Broadband Aloft Can Connect 1 Billion

LONDON -- Broadband World Forum -- For 1 billion of the 2.5 billion people on the planet who don't have access to the Internet, balloons may be the answer to their prayers. Not just any old balloon -- big balloons, 20km high in the sky, well above aircraft, operated by Alphabet's X innovation lab, and kitted out with fiber optics, tunable spectrum gear and lasers.

During the morning keynotes in London today, Mauro de Filho, strategy director at Alphabet Inc. X's Project Loon, gave an overview of the project and its mission to provide connectivity to rural areas previously out of reach.

Filho said each balloon can provide connectivity to 4,000 square kilometers, or two times the area of an average tower. The balloons fly very high -- way above aircraft and weather but low enough that typical, off the shelf, 4G handsets can connect to the Internet without any specialized infrastructure, said Filho. "You can get massive footprint and serve your users with off the shelf handsets."

Figure 1: It's a Bird! It's a Plane! Nope. It's Broadband! A Project Loon balloon when Alphabet launched the project in 2014. Source: Alphabet A Project Loon balloon when Alphabet launched the project in 2014. Source: Alphabet

The project is not without challenges -- one of which is that balloons cannot be steered; they can only be moved up and down. Another is that the project is heavily reliant on computing but it also relies on things like meteorology and ballooning which are a bit outside the realm of typical telecom skill sets.

In fact, Filho described one specific trial that involved launching balloons from Puerto Rico and moving them to Peru for service. After 18 days of flight and 100 days in use in Peru, the trial required 18,000 maneuvers with the balloons. "We learned a lot about ballooning," he said.

Wireless backhaul is provided balloon to balloon using free space optics -- and accuracy is essential but very difficult to achieve. To get an idea of what it would be like, Filho said people should imagine standing on the opposite side of a football field from a friend who's holding a grain of rice and spinning in circles, and then imagine aiming a laser at the grain of rice -- just a bit of a challenge but one that can provide great reward.

"Instead of running fiber on the ground, we can run fiber in the sky if we can point the optics toward another," said Filho. The balloons then pass the traffic onto specific operators on the ground using tunable radio spectrum technology, he said. "One billion people can connect direct with normal handsets. We can revolutionize lives."

— Elizabeth Miller Coyne, Managing Editor, Light Reading

About the Author(s)

Elizabeth Miller Coyne

Managing Editor

Elizabeth Miller Coyne has been a writer and editor for over 20 years with 16 of those years focused on the telecom sector in a variety of capacities, including journalism, corporate communications, public relations, radio show host and more. Formerly editor of Light Reading's The New IP site, she is now leading the content and direction for Light Reading's new online learning community, Upskill U. In January, she was appointed to the NASA JPL Solar System Ambassadors program -- a public outreach program designed to work with volunteers from across the nation to communicate the excitement of JPL's space exploration missions and information about recent discoveries to people in their local communities.

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