Loons make the internet bigger

The world's eyes were back on Canterbury at the weekend, for good reasons, and not just because of the rugby.

The international internet company Google launched 30 hi-tech balloons into our airspace to test a clever idea to better connect the world through high-flying objects.

As Blackadder might have said to the newly-knighted Baldrick, Sir Tony Robinson, it's a plan so cunning you could stick a tail on it and call it a weasel. And it seems so wacky that Google have called it by the slightly non-PC name Project Loon. Loon, they advise us, is short for "balloon".

Without getting too pointy-headed about it, this is how it works.

Squadrons of lightweight balloons 15 metres in diameter will be sent to the edge of space, 20km up and twice the altitude of commercial airliners. People using special antennas will be able to connect to the balloons, which connect to each other and eventually to an internet-capable ground station.

The millions of people in the world without internet can then get online thanks to the balloons floating above them, without the need for cables or wi-fi hotspots or line-of-sight masts on top of hills. In an emergency which brings down the local internet service, Google balloons can also be used to restore it quickly through the sun and wind-powered network in the sky.

This is intended to be a truly global project. The balloon above Canterbury now could well ride stratospheric winds to South America, then Africa, and so on around the world. No doubt there will be diplomatic issues to work out, especially given that Google is an American company with a now-known agreement to provide large amounts of data to the US National Security Agency.

How will the Chinese feel about Google balloons in their airspace? Watch the world pages for developments.

But Google is already everywhere in cyberspace, and people who want to take advantage of Project Loon will make a conscious choice to do so, at least for now, by connecting via the special antennas.

All this does is make the internet bigger, which can only improve the way the world connects and communicates. It also closes the gaps between the haves and the have-nots in the cyber world. Two-thirds of the world's population does not yet have internet access. This way they might get it at an affordable price.

What impresses particularly is the way that simple ideas are used to achieve ends which could otherwise be difficult. Think of how hard it is to put a communications satellite into orbit, and then how comparatively easy it might be to achieve similar coverage with something as simple as a bunch of balloons. This is, quite literally, blue-sky thinking.
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Similar innovative ideas have inspired Roger Dennis' Sensing City proposals for a wired, rebuilt Christchurch. They are also evident in the IBM Smarter Cities project involving the Canterbury Development Corporation, and the innovative work being done in our tertiary institutes.

Christchurch is ideally placed to factor the clever use of new technology into the rebuild. How appropriate that Google chose our skies to launch its loons.