Google Launches Internet - Beaming Ballons

Wrinkled and skinny at first, the translucent, jellyfish-shaped  balloons that Google released this  week from a frozen field in the  heart of New Zealand's South Island hardened into shiny pumpkins  

as they rose into the blue winter skies above Lake Tekapo, passing the first big test of a lofty goal to get the entire planet online.

It was the culmination of 18 months' work on what Google calls Project Loon , in recognition of how wacky the idea may sound.  

Developed in the secretive X lab that came up with a driverless car and web-surfing eyeglasses, the flimsy helium-filled inflatables  beam the Internet down to earth as they sail past on the wind.

Still in their experimental stage, the balloons were the first of thousands that Google's leaders eventually hope to launch 20  kilometres (12 miles) into the stratosphere in order to bridge the  

gaping digital divide between the world's 4.8 billion unwired people and their 2.2 billion plugged-in counterparts.If successful, the technology might allow countries to leapfrog the expense of laying fibre cable, dramatically increasing Internet  usage in places such as Africa and Southeast Asia.

"It's a huge moonshot. A really big goal to go after," said project leader Mike Cassidy. "The power of the Internet is probably one of  the most transformative technologies of our time."

The first person to get Google Balloon Internet access this week  was Charles Nimmo, a farmer and entrepreneur in the small town of Leeston. He found the experience a little bemusing after he was  one of 50 locals who signed up to be a tester for a project that  was so secret, no one would explain to them what was happening.  

Technicians came to the volunteers' homes and attached to the outside walls bright red receivers the size of basketballs and  resembling giant Google map pins. Nimmo got the Internet for about 15 minutes before the balloon  transmitting it sailed on past. His first stop on the Web was to check out the weather because he wanted to find out if it was an optimal time for "crutching" his sheep, a term he explained to the  technicians refers to removing the wool around sheep's rear ends.

Nimmo is among the many rural folk, even in developed countries,  that can't get broadband access. After ditching his dial-up four  years ago in favour of satellite Internet service, he's found himself  stuck with bills that sometimes exceed $1,000 in a single month.

While the concept is new, people have used balloons for communication, transportation and entertainment for centuries. In  recent years, the military and aeronautical researchers have used  tethered balloons to beam Internet signals back to bases on earth.

Google's balloons fly free and out of eyesight, scavenging power  from card table-sized solar panels that dangle below and gather enough charge in four hours to power them for a day as the balloons sail around the globe on the prevailing winds. Far below,  ground stations with Internet capabilities about 100 kilometers (60  miles) apart bounce signals up to the balloons.

The signals would hop forward, from one balloon to the next, along  a backbone of up to five balloons.Each balloon would provide Internet service for an area twice the size of New York City, about 1,250 square kilometers (780 square  miles), and terrain is not a challenge. They could stream Internet  

into Afghanistan's steep and winding Khyber Pass or Yaounde, the  capital of Cameroon, a country where the World Bank estimates  four out of every 100 people are online.

There are plenty of catches, including a requirement that anyone using Google Balloon Internet would need a receiver plugged into  their computer in order to receive the signal. Google is not talking  costs at this point, although they're striving to make both the  balloons and receivers as inexpensive as possible, dramatically less than laying cables.

The signals travel in the unlicensed spectrum, which means Google  doesn't have to go through the onerous regulatory processes  required for Internet providers using wireless communications  networks or satellites. In New Zealand, the company worked with the Civil Aviation Authority on the trial. Google chose the country in part because of its remoteness. 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.

Christchurch was a symbolic launch site because some residents  were cut off from online information for weeks following a 2011  earthquake that killed 185 people. Google believes balloon access  could help places suffering natural disasters get quickly back  online. Tania Gilchrist, a resident who signed up for the Google trial, feels lucky she lost her power for only about 10 hours on the day of the quake.

At Google's mission control in Christchurch this week, a team of jet lagged engineers working at eight large laptops used wind data  from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to  manoeuvre the balloons over snowy peaks, identifying the wind layer with the desired speed and direction and then adjusting balloons'  altitudes so they floated in that layer.

Google Glass, hidden camera-equipped eyeglasses with a tiny computer display that responds to voice commands.

DeVaul initially thought their biggest challenge would be establishing  the radio links from earth to sky, but in the end, one of the most  complex parts was hand building strong, light, durable balloons that could handle temperature and pressure swings in the  stratosphere.

Google engineers studied balloon science from NASA, the Defense  Department and the Jet Propulsion Lab to design their own  airships made of plastic films similar to grocery bags. Hundreds  have been built so far.

The balloons would be guided to collection points and replaced periodically. In cases when they failed, a parachute would deploy.In pilot projects, African farmers solved disease outbreaks after  

searching the Web, while in Bangladesh "online schools" bring  teachers from Dhaka to children in remote classrooms through  large screens and video conferencing.

Many experts said the project has the potential to fast-forward developing nations into the digital age, possibly impacting far more  people than the Google X lab's first two projects: The glasses and a  fleet of self-driving cars that have already logged hundreds of  thousands of accident-free miles.

As the world's largest advertising network, Google itself stands to expand its own empire by bringing Internet to the masses: More users means more potential Google searchers, which in turn give  

the company more chances to display their lucrative ads.Before heading to New Zealand, Google spent a few months secretly  launching between two and five flights a week in California's central  valley, prompting what Google's scientists said were a handful of  unusual reports on local media.