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You have probably heard that Google has an ambitious project aimed at getting Internet to remote places.
Silvina Moschini from Intuic will tell us exactly what Google's "Loon" is about.
Project Loon is an experiment Google is making, to try to connect people
in remote or disaster-stricken areas to the Internet through a system of balloons.
or balloon, be like?
Would it be like a system linking
the remote site with an Internet signal?
You are right, Guillermo. There are 2 big elements: first, the balloons,
and second, an antenna that will be placed on the roof of a house or building.
That antenna will send a signal that the balloons will receive and transmit to the other balloons.
Then, the signal will bounce off the Earth,
and that's how they will be able to cross the distance to provide Internet access.
The primary questions I have now are, will this have to be a non-aerial traffic zone, on the one hand
and on the other, are the balloons going to be static, staying more or less in the same place, or will they be moving around?
Those are 2 very good questions, Guillermo. This will be in an area that is not regulated, an area like the stratosphere,
2 times higher than the height of transiting airplanes.
The balloons will circulate: they will be moving around, so that when a balloon moves, another will come to replace it,
and this will make them circulate.
That way, this pilot program that started over the weekend in New Zealand
will progressively move to other places in the same latitude, and eventually could get to Argentina or Chile or even Uruguay,
because they are basically in the same geographic zone. With this movement, if everything works as expected,
they will be able to cover areas with the balloons that today are very remote.
This could be a very interesting phenomenon, allowing everyone Internet access,
because currently 2 out of 3 people in the world do not have Internet access.
Are there any other companies behind the financing of this project? Or is it only Google?
As I understand, Guillermo, the project is experimental and is in a very early stage, and it has been released publicly
because the idea is to create alliances with communication companies, who today have the field technology for providing Internet access.
So the idea is that this project can grow and could become universal;
it can grow more significantly and faster through partnerships, especially with telecommunications companies.
I was reading the preliminary information, that there are 30 balloons launched into the stratosphere,
I guess to cover all these areas that could be as big as Antarctica, and also parts of the northern hemisphere,
but in the future it would take many more than 30 balloons.
These balloons also have a lifespan, and part of the project is that they are connected by a GPS and receive solar energy,
so they can be returned to the Earth, to be recycled with the idea of producing many more.
The good thing about this technology is that it is very cheap, and if it works it can be a beautiful madness
that helps ensure equality and cuts out the digital divide, so that everyone can have Internet access.
But this is still in an early stage. A test was done on Saturday in New Zealand where for 15 minutes, a few received the benefit of this connection.
This is a great step in innovation and the hope is that it can work
and we are all betting on that, because today a big part of our lives takes place over the Internet, and it is very sad to know that
while in some places almost everyone has Internet, in others, this service is virtually nonexistent, creating great inequality.
Silvina Moschini from Intuic, talking with us about Google's Project Loon.