Feds welcome Google’s ‘Loon’

"Google's Project Loon is the epitome of innovation. It takes cool science and puts it together in a completely new way," says Dr William Rolleston, Federated Farmers vice-president, speaking immediately after the global launch of Google Loon in Christchurch on Saturday.

"What Google proposes doing is to use balloons high in the stratosphere to offer wide area coverage of broadband. It is, quite literally, the material of Star Trek.

"Google Loon is a radical but inspiring solution which could eliminate the latency downside of satellite and weak or non-existent wireless for those areas where fibre based broadband cannot reach.

"With 'rings' of 'Loon balloons,' it is a brave new step toward providing coverage to rural and remote areas. Potentially this is huge given New Zealand's Rural Broadband Initiative still leaves around a quarter of rural New Zealand without reliable or rapid access to the internet."

Google says Project Loon is experimental technology for balloon-powered Internet access. Google thinks a ring of balloons, flying around the globe on the stratospheric winds, might be a way to provide affordable Internet access to rural, remote, and underserved areas down on Earth, or help after disasters when existing communication infrastructure is affected.

The balloons, carried by the wind at altitudes twice as high as commercial planes fly, can beam Internet access to the ground at speeds similar to today's 3G networks or faster.

It pilot test began at the weekend with the launch of a few dozen balloons from the Tekapo area of the South Island. A group of about 50 pilot testers in Christchurch and parts of Canterbury now have special Internet antennas that can connect to the balloon-powered Internet when the balloons are in a 20km radius.

Charles Nimmo of Leeston became the first person in the world to connect to balloon-powered Internet.