Wireless Internet is Google's biggest humanitarian Project
Google wants to start beaming internet from its high-altitude balloons next year | The Verge.
The video in the above article is from Google’s Test in Brazil:
In a future not too distant, in a world slightly more distant from us, there will be internet available in the most rural areas of the world through a network of extremely low altitude satellites. Communication relay gear suspended from dozens if not hundreds of helium balloons will soon be circling the globe if Google has it’s way. This could be one of the most significant advancements in closing the global digital divide, ever. It’s exciting to see what free and open access to information through the web will mean for the rest of the world.
I know that my job will get a lot more exciting and boring at the same time once every Compassion project is reliably connected with a high-bandwidth, high-availability internet connection.
Another interesting point about this is the political network design aspects. The balloons can be launched and based in one country and could physically cross borders with other countries on the upper air currents. In fact, it’s almost guaranteed. Assuming the connections are more or less on an open protocol, this means the residents of nations with an censorship/isolation regime will be facing a population who has unfiltered access to the internet. I can’t imagine how hard it would be to shoot these balloons down at their cruising altitude of 65,000 feet.