Photo: Google To Launch Internet-beaming Balloons

Google is experimenting with balloons that beam the Internet from the
sky. The helium-filled balloons are made from a thin polyethylene film
and are 15 meters (49 feet) in diameter when fully inflated. They
floatin the stratosphere about 20 kilometers (12 miles) above the
Earth.
Eighteen months in the works,the top-secret project was announced
Saturday in New Zealand, where up to 50 volunteer households are
already beginning to receive the Internet briefly on their home
computers via translucent helium balloons that sail by on the wind 12
miles above Earth.
"It's a huge moonshot, a really big goal to go after," said project
leader Mike Cassidy. "The power of the Internet is probably one of the
most transformative technologies of our time."
The so-called Project Loon was developed in the clandestine Google X
lab that also came up with a driverlesscar and Google's Web-surfing
eyeglasses.
Google would not say how much it is investing in the project or how
much customers will be charged when it is up and running.
The first person to get GoogleBalloon Internet access this week was
Charles Nimmo, a farmer and entrepreneur in the small town of Leeston
who signed up for the experiment. Technicians attached a bright red,
basketball-size receiver resembling a giant Google map pin to the
outside of his home.
In a successful preliminary test, Nimmo received the Internet for
about 15 minutesbefore the 49-foot-wide transmitting balloon he was
relying on floated out of range.
The balloons would sail on the stratosphere's winds in a continuous
circuit around the globe. The balloons come equipped with flight
computers, and Google would control the balloons' altitude from the
ground, keeping them moving along a desired channel by using different
winds at different heights.
Google says past attempts to control balloons have involved tethering
them or using expensive motors to keep them in place. They say simply
sailing with the winds was one of the company's breakthrough ideas.
The balloons have the potential to provide Internet access far more
cheaply, quickly and widely than traditional underground fiber cables.
One downside is that computer users on the groundwould need to install
a receiver to get the signal.
The transmitter on each balloon would beam down theInternet to an area
about 1,250 square kilometers (780 square miles) – twice the size of
New York City.