Google is teaming up with Telstra to allow 20 balloons to fly over Australia, in western Queensland, as part of a project created with the aim of connecting remote areas of the world.

Google is looking forward to bring its innovative internet-transmitting balloons to Australia. December will be the month. 20 Balloons will be spread and test-flied in western Queensland thanks to the partnership with Telstra.

The initiative is part of larger project, the Project Loon, which consists in Google’s ambitious plan to beam internet around the world using helium balloons. The balloons will circle the globe on stratospheric winds and will be able to reach and beam internet over the remote areas of the world. The balloons fly 20km far from the Earth surface, with a 4G-like signal beamed through equipped antennas to homes and phones.

Telstra will play a role in the project supplying the base stations which will allow communication with the flying balloons and access to the space of the radio spectrum. Previous attempts were done in New Zealand, above Christchurch, in June 2013. Back then, Google outlined the importance of favourable stratospheric conditions of the area.

Google’s ambitious project is to bring internet to the two-thirds of the world population who are currently unwired, through a ring of balloons circling the Earth. Also, hopes concern the possibility of balloons to provide coverage for that areas where natural disaster occurred.

The works for Project Loon have been in progress since mid-2011 by the scientist of Google X. The department is the same involved on the more famous project Google Glass and is also working on driverless cars.

The new technology would allow a switching point for the developing countries because would represent an effective alternative to the more intrusive, time wasting and money costing solution of the underground fibre cabling.

More information about the Project Loon: 1. Signals are sent by web-connected base stations toward the balloons. The balloons float two times higher than passenger jets.

2. The signals reach one balloon and are retransmitted to the others.

3. Each balloon covers an area of 40 km in diameter using a wireless communications technology called LTE.

4. Balloons are designed to last around 100 days. They measure twelve meters tall by fifteen meters wide when fully inflated and are made from sheets of polyethylene plastic, a resistant material necessary to allow it last a period that long in the stratosphere.

5. The plan aims to have a ring of balloons circling the Earth following westerly stratospheric winds

Written by: Pietro Paolo Frigenti