Search giant Google has launched ‘Project Loon’ in Indonesia. The company, which has headquarters in Mountain View, California, USA, is working with Telkomsel, XL Axiata, and Indosat (3 major Indonesian telecommunications companies that offer Internet services) to extend the Internet’s reach in the fourth largest country in the world (in terms of population). Google has taken on quite a challenge – Indonesia is typified by a geological sprawl of 17,000 islands covering an area of just under 2 million square kilometers. At present, only 29% of Indonesia’s 255 million people have internet access.
“Project Loon is a network of balloons traveling 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” suggests Google’s website. It started in 2011 under the company’s Google X activities, and was established in New Zealand in June 2013 with a mission to bring the Internet to the world’s developing countries and the remotest of areas. At the moment Google is setting up a network of helium balloons in Indonesia that will sit in the stratosphere to offer Internet connection. The balloons will be tested over the next 12 months.
News of the project’s Indonesia launch was announced at a press conference at Google’s Mountain View headquarters. “Occasionally getting out of communications range is healthy for all of us,” explained Google’s Sergey Brin at the press conference. “But if it’s part of your daily life and you don’t have access to the information and the ability to communicate with people important to you that’s a real disadvantage.”
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