2015 REWIND: The biggest Asia-Pacific telecoms stories of 2015

Telecom Asia editors
14 Jan 2016
00:00

Project Loon gets real

Project Loon - Google’s dream of connecting the unconnected with broadband-enabled balloons, first revealed in mid-2013 - took one step closer to reality in October this year when Indonesia’s three largest mobile operators - Indosat (now Ooredoo Indosat) Telkomsel and XL Axiata - agreed to test its balloon-powered internet service.

Announcing the arrangement, Google Asia Pacific said the three operators will evaluate using the technology as part of efforts to connect more Indonesians to the internet, thereby stimulating the nation’s digital economy.

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Telecom Asia December 2015 / January 2016

Currently only around one in three Indonesians are connected to the internet, and connections are often “painfully slow,” the company said.
Project Loon envisions providing internet services via high-altitude balloons that act like floating mobile towers. The balloons would float in stratospheric winds at altitudes twice as high as commercial planes, beaming internet connections to the ground.

The balloons would be strategically placed in predictable slipstreams to ensure that as soon as one balloon floats away from a service area another takes its place.

Google said the technology has the potential to overcome the difficulties of deploying infrastructure in geographically-challenging regions such as Indonesia, which has more than 17,000 islands of jungles and mountains.

This is the second Project Loon test announced in Asia-Pacific, following a pilot test launched in New Zealand in 2013.

Compiled from original reports by: Fiona Chau, Dylan Bushell-Embling, Stefan Hammond, Aaron Koh, Grace Mirandilla-Santos, Don Sambandaraksa and John C. Tanner

This article was first published in Telecom Asia Dec 2015/Jan 2016 edition

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