Kenya will use the Alphabet X (Google) Loon high-speed internet balloons to provide internet to its rural population. Google Loon already provided internet to 250,000 people in Puerto Rico after the hurricane last year.
There are 51 million people in Kenya but only 14 million are in cities. This means 37 million people are in rural areas.
* Only 40% of the Kenyan rural population has access to electricity
* 26% of Kenya’s people have internet
Google might be able to double Kenya’s internet access to 50% in a short time. Further improvement would depend upon progress with electrification.
Google Loon has demonstrated data transmission between balloons over 100 km apart in the stratosphere and back down to people on the ground with connection speeds of up to 10 Mbps, directly to their LTE phones.
Google Loon has auto launchers which are able of safely and consistently launching a new balloon every 30 minutes. They have flown over 25 million km of test flights to date since the project began. One balloon set an endurance record of 190 days in the stratosphere.
About 12 months ago, Google released about ten Project loon balloons around Marsabit, Nyeri, Nanyuki and Nakuru in Kenya.
Each balloon transmits internet over an area 80 kilometers in diameter. Kenya is roughly 800 kilometers east to west and 1000 kilometers north to south. About 140 Alphabets loons would be able to blanket the country in Internet.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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