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Alphabet deployed emergency LTE to Puerto Rico w/ Project Loon in under a month

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Update 10/27: T-Mobile customers in Puerto Rico can now connect to Project Loon for emergency internet service. X also revealed that over the past week the balloons have provided connectivity to “tens of thousands.”


Earlier this month, Project Loon was granted authorization to provide emergency service to Puerto Rico using their balloons. Today, the Alphabet division announced that in partnership with AT&T it began providing LTE service to the hurricane-stricken island.


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Key Project Loon patent cancelled by US Patent and Trademark Office

Most of a key Project Loon patent has been cancelled by the US Patent and Trademark Office after another company succeeded in convincing the agency that it came up with the idea first.

Project Loon uses free-floating balloons to provide Internet access to remote areas, beaming down Wi-Fi from overhead. The patent which has been cancelled relates to how Alphabet steers the balloons …


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Google’s Project Loon advancements kept a test balloon in the air for over three months

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Google-related news may be all about Pixel, Nexus and Andromeda right now, but such a narrowed down field of topics would neglect the actual number of things the company — or, rather, the parent Alphabet — is actively working on; a big number. And one of its craziest, most interesting projects is Project Loon, which made extraordinary progress over the past few months…


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Report: Google may finally get government’s blessing to test Project Loon in India

In this June 10, 2013 photo released by Jon Shenk, a Google balloon sails through the air with the Southern Alps mountains in the background, in Tekapo, New Zealand. Google is testing the balloons which sail in the stratosphere and beam the Internet to Earth. (AP Photo/Jon Shenk) EDITORIAL USE ONLY

Google is finally about to get the go ahead from the Indian government to run a pilot of Project Loon in India according to a report from the Economic Times. According to the sites source, an anonymous “top government official”, the nation is keen to test as many alternative methods of providing internet connectivity as possible. One of which is Google’s high-altitude balloons.


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Google’s Project Loon in talks with telcos in India to launch pilot

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Google is pushing forward with its Project Loon plans to bring Internet access to remote parts of India as The Economic Times today reported the company is currently in talks with local telecommunications providers.

The publication spoke with Google India chief Rajan Ananda who confirmed the talks with local providers for Loon without naming specific companies, but the report noted telco BSNL among other unnamed companies are actively included in the discussions.


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Project Loon team shows off its impressive Puerto Rico-based autolauncher in action

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Project Loon is undoubtedly one of Google’s most inventive and ambitious projects to date. Formerly part of the Google X group, now under the ‘X’ Alphabet sub-division, these airborne signal boosters will provide high speed LTE coverage to rural areas in a number of developing markets. Sri Lanka and Indonesia are set to be among the first regions to get these stratospheric floating towers. In a G+ post, the team showed off how they get the balloons off the ground…


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Project Loon has successfully delivered video-capable speeds as it moves into carrier testing

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Google’s parent company Alphabet told a TED conference in Vancouver that its Project Loon Internet-delivery balloons had successfully delivered speeds of 15Mbps – fast enough for streaming video. It is preparing for carrier tests in Indonesia and elsewhere this year.

Alphabet X head Astro Teller said that the company tried a lot of unsuccessful balloon designs before finally finding one that was up to the job, reports Re/code.

There were shiny balloons and round balloons and balloons that looked like giant pillows. But eventually the company found a design that could be made cheaply and still navigate precisely. That balloon, Teller said, last year travelled around the world 19 times over 187 days last year.

Teller also shared a key part of the company’s approach to Alphabet X projects, along with details of two which the company has abandoned …


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Report: Google using solar-powered drones to test delivering 5G data speeds from the sky

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According to a report from The Guardian, Google is currently in the process of testing solar-powered drones at Spaceport America in New Mexico. The company is reportedly testing the possibility of using these solar-powered drones to deliver high-speed internet from the air. Google, of course, also has its Project Loon effort, which uses high-alitude balloons to beam down internet service to the areas below. It’s unclear, at this point, if the two efforts are related or will be used in different scenarios.


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Google responds to Project Loon objections, tells FCC balloons are safe & legal

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In this June 10, 2013 photo released by Jon Shenk, a Google balloon sails through the air with the Southern Alps mountains in the background, in Tekapo, New Zealand. Google is testing the balloons which sail in the stratosphere and beam the Internet to Earth. (AP Photo/Jon Shenk) EDITORIAL USE ONLY

It’s two-and-a-half years since Google first shared details of Project Loon, a series of high-altitude balloons designed to provide wireless Internet access to developing countries where infrastructure is scarce. As testing expands, and we’ve learned more about the project’s progress, the FCC has started to receive objections from those concerned that the long-range microwave transmissions might pose health risks or interfere with other wireless operations.

Google has this week written to the FCC to argue that the balloons are both safe and legal …


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Nat & Lo give us a brief look into the history (and future) of Google[x]’s Project Loon [Video]

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If you don’t follow Google as closely as we do here at 9to5Google (chances are you probably don’t), Nat & Lo’s videos are a great way to get yourself acquainted with the happenings in and around the Mountain View company. This couple of Googlers use their 20% time to make videos about the inner workings of Google itself, and the end product is an easy-to-understand look at some of Google’s most obscure (and not-so-obscure) projects.

This week, Nat & Lo are taking us on a tour of Project Loon, one of Google’s efforts to bring internet to the entire world…
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