Google’s Project Loon is a grandoise project to bring internet to the third world via large party balloons. Last time we’d checked in, it was flying 20 balloons over Australia; now, it wants to put 20,000 over remote parts of Indonesia.
In an announcement today, Google confirmed that it’s teaming up with three of Indonesia’s biggest cell carriers to bring sweet, sweet LTE to some of Indonesia’s 17,000 islands.
https://gizmodo.com/the-incredible-calculations-that-keep-googles-project-l-1707825609
Mike Cassidy, project leader for Loon, said that “Indonesia is the perfect fit for Project Loon,” and it’s hard to disagree: a dispersed nation relying on satellite for its limited internet connectivity could benefit hugely from cheap, widely available 10Mbps connections.
Google is going to spend the next year testing the tech with its partners, before rolling out a product to consumers. The cell carriers will be responsible for the sales and billing, while Google will pump ‘em full of gas and go flying.
[Guardian]
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