Google Hopes To Bring Connectivity To Very Remote Areas Of The World

Google has undertaken a project that could one day provided Internet connectivity to people living in very remote areas of the world by relying signals relayed via balloons flying at an altitude of about 60,000 feet.

Even Google tacitly admits that it is a far-fetched idea through the name of the program ... Project Loon. But according to Wired Magazine, when representatives from the Internet giant showed up at a remote home in New Zealand not long ago and asked of they could put a red sphere on top of the home of Hayden and Anna Mackenzie, the couple agreed. The program was under such a veil of secrecy that the couple was not told until the day after its installation that it would give them Internet service relayed by a high-flying balloon.

The project was officially announced at a news conference in New Zealand on Friday. On Google's official blog, the company says that they think it might be possible to operate a global constellation of balloons flying in the stratosphere that will relay internet service to the "two out of every three people on earth" for whom "a fast, affordable Internet connection is still out of reach."

Project Loon is being initially tested in New Zealand. Some 50 people in the Canterbury area of that country have been selected to test the service, and Google has launched 30 balloons as part of the test program.

(Image from Google YouTube video)

FMI: www.google.com/loon