[AusNOG] Google Loon Balloon Broadband

[Tony]

The article linked below explains most of it I think, some quotes:

"ground stations with Internet capabilities about 100 kilometers apart bounce signals up to the balloons"
"signals would hop forward, from one balloon to the next, along a backbone of up to five balloons"

From what I can gather, the balloons would probably form some kind of loose mesh network.
The balloons are 20km up in the air, so you need a special antenna to connect to them.

Think of it as a replacement for satellite connection in remote places. Also not sure about continuous connection, the guy from the trial in the article said that he had 15 minutes of Internet access before the balloon went past. You would have to assume that they next one coming along would then pick up the signal, but unless you have quite a large number of balloons it might be sporadic at best. This would still be better than no Internet at all for remote locations. I'm google are developing (or already have) something in chrome to allow for this sporadic access ;)


Now they just need to fit some low power servers with big disks to these balloons so they can cache content "locally" on the balloons themselves !


regards,
Tony.





>________________________________
>Any clues as to how its backhauled?
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>On 14/07/2013, at 5:08 AM, "Andrew White" <admin at uberskilled.com> wrote:
>
>
>Cassidy said in the next phase of the trial they hope to get up to 300 balloons forming a ring on the 40th parallel south from New Zealand through Australia, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay and Argentina.
>>
>>
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>>Bloody Tasmanians are going to get it first, again!
>>
>>http://bigstory.ap.org/article/google-begins-launching-internet-beaming-balloons
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