The internet biggie Google is known to experiment on innovative ways to make things more exciting. In a latest stint, it is reported that Google is working alongside Indian government on a new technology which will provide the internet signals through big air balloons.
However, the concept is not new for Google as it has already tested the said technology in some other countries as well, but this is the first time for India and given the fact that Indian government has given green signal to the idea, we certainly now know what did our Prime Minister Narendra Modi mean what he promoted the idea of ‘Digital India’ globally.
Google started the project called Loon in which huge balloons are kept in the sky at about a distance of 20 kilometres from earth’s surface. The balloons will be then doing the job of transmitting the internet signals from up above. The technology has already gone through the testing phase in California (U.S.), Brazil and New Zealand. If this thing works as planned it will become a new kind of technological innovation for which Google is widely popular for. However, entirely changing the way we use internet, are we really ready for the change?
An official source from Press Trust of India (PTI) said: “Google approached government to set up the Loon project and drone-based internet transmission. Government has approved testing of Loon project only as of now. A committee under chairmanship of Secretary, DeitY, has been formed to work on it.”
In its initial stages, Google seems to be participating with BSNL for testing out Loon technology with the use of broadband spectrum in 2.6GHz band.
However Google decided to keep mum as one of the official from Google refused to comment on the issue.
The technology if gets used for the 4G internet services can very well replace the mobile towers which are notorious for causing some serious illnesses already. Loon will get rid of them and we will be getting internet signals on our cellphones directly from the floating balloons.
According to the sources, each balloon can provide signals for an area as wide as 40 kilometres through LTE or 4G and will collaborate with the telecom companies.
“The DeitY committee is looking at various aspects to facilitate test like identifying locations, coordination with various agencies. Under the drone project, Google had plans to transmit internet on ground using 8 big solar powered drones, but that has not been cleared by government yet,” sources added.