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IPFS News Link • Internet

Kenya will use Alphabet Internet Balloons to provide internet to rural areas

• https://www.nextbigfuture.com, brian wang

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.


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