People in poor and faraway areas have few chances to visit the Internet. In Africa, 72% of the population cannot connect to the Internet. Luckily, "Balloon Internet System'', developed by Loon, is now providing service to faraway, mountainous places in Kenya where there are too few people to support the building of signal equipment on the ground.
The balloons, are about 24 meters tall and 8 meters wide. They are made of a plastic material that is built to last at least 100 days. They are filled with gas that is lighter than air and rise up to 20 kilometers into the sky — a height twice as high as airplanes fly. This helps the balloons avoid weather problems and wildlife. The balloons move through the skies by wind currents that carry them up and down during the flight path. They are designed to link up with a team of balloons over areas with little Internet connectivity. Stations on the ground send signals from local Internet service providers up to the balloons. These signals are then fed back to earth in a similar way to how satellites work. Then people on the ground can connect to the high—speed Internet service. Solar energy collectors power the equipment during the day and charge a battery as well. The battery runs the system at night. When the life of the balloon ends, a parachute self—deploys to guide it back down to the ground.
The sky—based system has many advantages. It is cheaper than building signal equipment on the ground and undeveloped countries are able to afford it. Moreover,it already showed success in Peru and Puerto Rico during natural disasters. The balloons were usable in 48 hours in May after a powerful earthquake struck a rural part of Peru. In the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico, Loon balloons were deployed after Hurricane Maria hit in 2017.
The launch in Kenya creates a first in many ways： the first non—emergency use to provide service in large areas, the first successful use of balloon—powered Internet in Africa and the first of lots of business uses to come round the world.
