Google’s Balloon Internet Experiment, One Year Later

[calinet6]

The most striking part of this is the systematic quality improvement they implemented. They went from an expert saying that long-term balloons were impossible, to making it a reality by understanding the true engineering variation causing failures.

We should look at every endeavor in this manner to improve quality. Look up W. Edwards Deming, wonderful stuff on quality control that can be applied to software just as well as manufacturing.

[mathattack]

Deming's career arc has been interesting. Neglected in the US to revered in the Japan to revered in the US to forgotten in the US. Maybe now that we don't fear Japan so much, we don't feel the need to obsess about his views on quality.

Many of his ideas stand the test of time. He just doesn't fit neatly into any academic curriculum.

[zw123456]

I think it is really great that Google is trying this, I don't want to be too pessimistic either as they seem to always defy the odds, but one of the problems with any type of high altitude platform whether it is LEO, Geosynchronous balloons or otherwise is that they cover a huge area, just by nature, which limits the capacity. Terrestrial cellular technologies get around this issue by being low to the ground so that the RF energy is dissipated and you are able to re-use the frequencies with the next cell over. With such high altitudes that is just not feasible. So I think this approach will always have limited capacity. Also, the fact that it is moving will be a challenge since both LTE and WiFi use OFDMA which is very sensitive to Center frequency offset that can be caused by the Doppler shift as the balloon moves. At 60kft, the uplink is going to be a challenge since most handsets transmit at 200mw max so it will be difficult to achieve high data rates in both directions. There are a number of other technical challenges that are ahead of them as well, but I am very impressed with their perseverance. I hope they are successful.

[gonzo]

Doppler shift isn't a huge problem for them. They use SDR and know their velocity.

[tgb]

It's always great to find that my initial pessimism was too hasty! Best of luck to this exciting project.

[jackgavigan]

> ..since NOAA only supplies forecasts for 16 days out, Google now has to make sophisticated guesses using a giant database of historical wind and weather data.

It would be interesting if, as a side-effect of Project Loom, Google ended up becoming the world's leading weather forecaster.

[metaobject]

The article stated that Titan may be able to use Loon's wind data (exactly for what it did not say) which implies that Google will (obviously) be collecting and storing wind data for each balloon. This may open up a new line of business for Google. We could soon see them selling access to their data to the government (wind data, that is) or to other corporations that are invoked in similar activities in that part of the atmosphere.

Furthermore, using data collected by the balloons, in conjunction with model forecasts generated by NOAA, could lead to some interesting/challenging/fun new algorithm development - using wind data from some subset of balloons to predict the trajectory of some other subset of balloons. Sound like fun!

[ChuckFrank]

I was invited to apply to Project Loon, which I did and unfortunately I never hear back from them. I wish I had.

[Gustomaximus]

Does anyone know how retrieval is ideally planned opposed to the current search party option?

There must be a reasonable cost for each balloons electronics, as well as the risk of this equipment hitting someone with balloon/time increases if left to random descent.

[johansch]

The other option they are working on besides balloons seems more manageable in that regard:

http://www.cnet.com/news/google-buys-solar-powered-drone-com...

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/google-will-beam-gigabit-in...

[agildehaus]

They've already had one crash into a power line.

[frozenport]

If you want to get the next billion connect why balloons? Why not a conventional grid? Why not improve internet service in Mumbai? Is there a more direct way to get the next billion connected? Does Google think there is no competition in these rural areas?

[Maakuth]

At least balloons are impossible to steal or sabotage, which might be a benefit for areas where no functional state is present (try Somalia). I can also imagine they are very cost efficient and fast to deploy to areas where connectivity is needed or is rapidly lost, say after an earthquake.

[eru]

The balloons are one project by one company. Google has more irons in the fire, and there are more companies.

Let a thousand flowers bloom.

[ihsw]

Because then you have to tear up the ground and maintain the grid's quality and physical security, this would involve managing relationships with numerous jurisdictions on many levels.

Also the bandwidth/latency needs are initially going to be quite a bit lower, which eases capacity planning.

[Goopplesoft]

Because if you get this unconventional method right your barrier to scaling reduces in the long run.

[Steko]

It's hard to take this next 5 billion stuff seriously when there's still no P2P mesh support built into Android.

[Shivetya]

Is there a reason not to anchor some of these? I know your very height restricted when anchored because of line weight, but why not anchored balloons as poor man towers? Or are they simply trying get beyond most weather?

[micampe]

There is one thing I don’t understand: the balloon can have a powerful enough antenna to send information to a phone 60,000 or more feet away, how does the phone talk back to the balloon?

[PanMan]

GSM cell's can be up to 40 km after which the problem becomes the timing (and 70 with extended cells). With cell's overhead, 20 km should be oke.

[jonknee]

Cell phones already do that now and the sky usually has the best line of sight.

[Gustomaximus]

It seems there is a ground based repeater, at least initially. See the second article picture: 'Project Loon team members install a Loon Internet antenna while schoolchildren look on.'

That said we have satellite phones now. Given the lower altitude of balloons getting a signal back should be realistic over future developments.

[gonzo]

Antenna gain is retro directive.

[sjtrny]

It's not direct phone to balloon communication. It's phone to fixed ground based wifi, fixed ground base to balloon. Although this is kind of glossed over in a lot of PR.

[lchengify]

Reminds me of the low-orbit satellite network in Society of the Mind.

IIRC, the protagonist wanted a internet-connected TV product with a small antenna. The only way to do it was to create a satellite network where the satellites were so close they would re-enter after a short timespan. It was countered by a continuous stream of launching satellites.

Replace "TV" with "LTE Phone", it's basically the same idea / value add.

[Wingman4l7]

Surely some variation on high-altitude aircraft would be more cost-effective than continually launching satellites?

[metabren]

Am I the only one that thinks these are creepy?

> a full ring of between 300 to 400 balloons circling the globe

I don't want Google looking back at me whenever I look up into the sky.

[lafar6502]

What about all kinds of national radio spectrum regulations or broadcasting/telecom laws? Will these baloons be allowed to operate everywhere?

[socrates1998]

I am curious, why can't you tie the balloons to the ground and just have them stay in the same place permanently until they lose their air?

Could you then create a continual service over a grid like network of these balloons? Or are the balloons too expensive to do this?

[teraflop]

The balloons only have so much buoyancy, and 60,000 feet of cable would end up being pretty heavy. Not to mention that the cables would be a hazard to aircraft navigation.

[darklrd]

It seemed like not feasible when I heard about it. The way they have approached every obstacle along with extensive testing - it's commendable.

[howon92]

I think they deserve to be called more than "it's commendable." I think they did awesome!

[Sonthun]

Has anybody seen any specs on these? Weight? Number of batteries? Solar panels?

[johnsteve]

Good initiate taken by Google and the other company.

[tomcam]

Article does not address danger to aircraft.

[bostan]

Chinese users are excluded, and if not, HN numbers will be way higher.