TECH

Kenia's internet provider uses online balloons

Loon, part of Alphabet holding, announced the launch of a balloon-based commercial Internet service in Kenya. This is the first commercial service of this magnitude to use Loon balloons floating in the upper atmosphere of Earth.
Kenyan service Loon provides services in collaboration with the local telecommunications operator Telkom Kenya, covering a region of approximately 50,000 km2. Before that, there was no reliable access to the Internet due to the complexity of installing telecommunications infrastructure in mountainous areas.
Loon is working on the implementation of its first commercial service in Kenya since the signing of an agreement with Telkom Kenya in 2019. 



The company said that this project has become even more important and important since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, as it made - it is possible to provide remote communication with doctors, family members and others, despite travel restrictions across the country.
The service in Kenya is provided by 35 balloons that are constantly moving to maintain coverage of the target area. The average speed of reception / transmission of data is about 18.9 Mbit/s and 4.74 Mbit/s, respectively, with a delay of 19 ms. Tests in real conditions have shown that this is sufficient for voice and video calls, as well as for transmitting on YouTube, using WhatsApp messenger etc.
During the testing of the Loon service, which started in Kenya earlier this year, some 35,000 people used its services.

AVnews