Google Balloons Take Flight In Vast Remote Broadband Launch | Leo King | Forbes.com

http://socialnetworkingnews.org/google-balloons-take-flight-in-vast-remote-broadband-launch-leo-king-forbes-com/

The secretive Google X operation sees itself as firmly on target with a plan to launch high altitude Internet-transmitting balloons across the southern hemisphere, as it aims to provide wireless coverage to billions of people in remote areas.

Google has said that by next year it aims to have a semi-permanent ring around the world to provide coverage to pilot testers in rural areas in places such as southern Africa, South America, Australasia and the most southerly parts of Asia.

In spite of the proliferation of smart phones in developing countries, many rural areas are poorly served by wireless connectivity. Google has the eventual target of reaching all of the astonishing five billion people globally who do not yet have internet coverage (only two billion are already connected, according to estimates) – with LTE broadband direct to cellphones and via local, ground-based antennae.

The move is the latest in the high speed race between technology and communications firms to lead this rural broadband provision . Last year, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said his company, too, is working fast with telecoms firms to build new data compression and infrastructure technology in a major scheme to offer global internet connectivity.

 

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Source: www.forbes.com

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