Google and Facebook are working on beaming the Web on to the world from drones and balloons cruising at the edge of space. How this might happen?
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| The first Aquila plane |
The Internet is supposed to be the big leveller of our
times, taking information and knowledge to the people who need it the most. But
only a third of the world’s population is online — the three major obstacles to
everyone getting the Internet being technology (that is good enough),
affordability (that makes services and devices cheaper, even free), and
connectivity (that can take the Internet everywhere that people are).
The two major Internet companies, Google and Facebook,
are working on removing these obstacles. Their most ambitious project is to try
to beam the Internet down from the skies, making it ubiquitous around the
globe.
Free Internet projects are part of its Internet.org
initiative. It has begun to set up terrestrial Express Wi-Fi services in
hundreds of locations across India; announced plans to launch a satellite with
France’s Eutelsat Communications to take the Internet to large parts of
sub-Saharan Africa in 2016. The big plan, however, is Aquila.
AQUILA
Yael Macguire of
Facebook’s connectivity lab calls it a “crazy idea”. But the prototype is ready
— a solar-powered aircraft with a wingspan bigger than a Boeing 737, that can
stay up for months on end. Cruising altitude: 60,000 ft (> 18 km), much
higher than commercial aircraft. Footprint: 100 km diameter.
“We want the airplanes to be where the people are… It is
really important that they can station keep, or stay in a particular region and
connect a particular people. They will move, but around a small zone. When the
plane moves the RF (radio frequency) system will adjust so that it continues to
have the same terrestrial footprint,” Macguire told The Indian Express.
While these aircraft try and create a grid of
connectivity, there will also be dark spots without connectivity in areas with
no substantial population. Those areas could be fed by satellite. The concept
is to have multiple grid layers — like the aircraft-powered grid overlapping
with the Express Wi-Fi grid on the ground. “We want to make sure that various
Express W-Fi networks are interconnected. The UAVs, meanwhile, will provide the
equivalent of the microwave backhaul. We think of these of building blocks to
ensure it is a robust network,” Macguire said.
The Challenge
Most people who need connectivity are already near
cities with optical networks. “So one of the ideas we are exploring is to use a
laser system to interconnect these planes,” Macguire said, adding that lasers
are cheaper as they don’t come under the regulatory framework and have lots of
bandwidth. However, there are challenges. “For instance, we have to be able to
hit what is the size of a rupee from 17.7 km away to be able to interlink the
UAVs,” Macguire said. In labs, the team has been able to achieve 10x of
existing state of the art data speeds and capacities.
Google has already rolled out Google Fibre, a
fibre-to-the-premises service, which includes a free Internet option. But what
could really be the gamechanger is Project Loon, or affordable balloon-powered
Internet.
Project Loon
Google calls it a “network of balloons travelling on the
edge of space, designed to connect people in rural and remote areas, help fill
coverage gaps, and bring people back online after disasters”. Project Loon
balloons will travel in the stratosphere, approximately 20 km above the Earth’s
surface, latching on to layers of wind as directed by software algorithms to
determine where they need to go. In the end, they will form one large communications
network.
The inflatable envelopes are made from sheets of
polyethylene plastic, 15 metres wide and 12 metres tall when fully inflated.
They are designed to stay up for at least 100 days in one go.
The electronics are powered by an array of solar panels
mounted at a steep angle to effectively capture sunlight on short winter days
at higher latitudes. The panels can produce about 100 Watts of power in full
sun, enough to keep the electronics running, along with charging a battery for
use at night.
The small box under the balloon will contain circuit
boards that control the system, radio antennas to communicate with other
balloons and with Internet antennas on the ground, and lithium ion batteries to
store solar power so the balloons can operate throughout the night.
Each balloon can provide connectivity to a ground area
about 40 km in diameter using LTE. Project Loon partners with telecom companies
to share cellular spectrum.
In June 2013, Project Loon was tested in New Zealand.
Google says the results of this pilot test and several other tests elsewhere in
the world, “are being used to improve the technology in preparation for the
next stages of the project”.
HOW SOON?
Sri Lanka will be the first country to be covered by
Loon, though no launch date is known. Aquila is 3 years away from taking
flight.
NEW BATTLES
Both Facebook and Google have said they don’t want to
become service providers. But US-based academic Vivek Wadhwa says when free
Wi-Fi (or affordable Internet) starts covering the globe in 3-4 years,
traditional telecom service providers are bound to feel threatened. “They will
start telling governments that they will go bankrupt. If you have Wi-Fi
everywhere no one is going to use their services,” Wadhwa said. Wadhwa sees
regulatory battles ahead. “After all, this could wipe out the entire telecom
industry.”
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