Remember the phrase
“Big Brother is watching,” well this project Loon from Google
continues that idea. This is another of those double edged swords
that Google loves to give to people, they will give a product that
improves our life but. BUT, they will use us using that tool to
create more ad revenue. That last sentence is a bit cynical of
Google, but do not get me wrong many of the things that Google does
are amazing and the benefit of using them greatly out weighs the
concerns of privacy, if that really even exists anymore, and
security, clearly shown not to exist anymore hello Home Depot and you
other lumbering behemoths of yesteryear. That is enough ranting but
now let us get down to business and talk about this new and amazing
product which, hopefully, Google will continue to develop, and if it
is not going to be them at least someone to develop.
Project Loon is an
amazing idea of using a balloon which has similarities of weather
balloons to carry a device, around 12 miles into the atmosphere,
which will then talk to other weather balloon devices and offer wide
area coverage of LTE speed connectivity, about a 600 mile radius.
Now compared to cell towers this area of coverage is ginormous, cell
towers are limited to any where from 2 to 40 mile radius depending on
signal and terrain type. This improvement is huge for low population
density areas, such as middle America but this is not the main area
for use which Google is likely looking at. It is highly likely that
Google will be using this technology to spread internet access to
highly remote or underdeveloped area where creating infrastructure to
them means that it is likely that these areas would not have
infrastructure built on the ground to them.
For places in the
world, such as sub-Saharan Africa, this could create the first time
that they would be able to access the web with ease and with a modern
speed. These countries currently have ways to access the internet
but they are seriously lacking, even the sub-Saharan countries that
are seen as the most developed have a huge gap in internet access
than the rest of the developed world. Hopefully Google will continue
to develop towards this goal of spreading internet access to less
developed areas of the world. Hopefully with deployment of this
could lead to people who have been impoverished and controlled to
question those in controll and create a better future for their
countries, much like the events in Arab Spring, Moldova and other of
the recent social movements.
The recent
occurrence in Australia with project Loon creates hope for this
technology in the already developed world. It would lead to further
coverage of LTE networks in places such as America, where for many
this would be faster than their wired connection to the internet.
Even if it is not Google but one of the cellular providers to roll
out a technology similar to this it would be highly welcomed. A lot
of this will be determined on how well Google's agreement to use this
technology with an Australian cellular provider goes, hopefully
project Loon will not be muddled with lack of progression as Google
Fiber has been here in America. I doubt that this will go the same
route as Fiber since this is a much cheaper infrastructure to develop
and maintain, the only issue may be from the FAA. Will Google create
their own cellular service, and if they do will they challenge the
NSA for king of the data goldmine?
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