Google's Project Loon: Internet for All of Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka Is Considering Google's Project Loon for Country-Wide Internet Coverage (Updated)

Nathan Ingraham | July 29, 2015

Project Loon is undoubtably one of the most "Google" projects that Google is working on — Wi-Fi being delivered by giant floating balloons is certainly a unique approach to getting internet to hard-to-reach areas. While Project Loon still sits in the Google X "moonshots" lab, it got a vote of confidence from the nation of Sri Lanka, which announced yesterday it was investigating using Google's Project Loon balloons to cover the country with internet access. If this comes to fruition, Sri Lanka would be the first country to have universal internet coverage; the country's relatively small size (just over 25,000 square miles) certainly makes that easier, but it would still be a big deal for Project Loon.

The helium balloons are inflated to the size they reach in the stratosphere. The “ballonets” inside are filled with air or emptied to make the balloon fall or rise. Source: http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/534986/project-loon/

<more at http://www.theverge.com/2015/7/29/9069961/google-project-loon-internet-sri-lanka; related links: http://www.google.com/loon/ (Balloon-Powered Internet for Everyone) and http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/534986/project-loon/ (Project Loon
Billions of people could get online for the first time thanks to helium balloons that Google will soon send over many places cell towers don’t reach. 2015)>