There’s possible good news for those thousands of Australian country dwellers plagued by poor and intermittent reception from NBN Co’s Sky Muster satellite service.Members of a research team at Google say they are
years closer to rolling out a network of huge balloons to provide connectivity
to rural areas round the globe.
The Internet giant’s Project Loon, which was trialled over Queensland in 2014,
is now able to use machine learning to predict weather systems.
It gives the Google team far greater control over where its balloons go, making
it possible to focus on a specific region, rather than circumnavigating the
globe.
Google said it is currently planning an experiment to run its service in a
particular place in the world with between 10 and 30 balloons.
Just where that will be is unclear but some observers are guessing Google might
seek to come Down Under for another try – though doubters believe the
Government would be unlikely to introduce a foreign competitor to NBN Co.
