Alphabet, Google's super-holding born in August combining innovative companies in the fields of new technologies and medicine is about to enter the test phase with its first project, Google Loon.
It is a series of probe balloons that travel at high altitudes creating a global internet transmission network.
The web giant has asked the Federal Communications Commission for a license to test experimental radio mechanisms in 50 states on American soil and Puerto Rico, attaching massive documentation. Alphabet is still hiding behind a "no comment" on the rumors leaked on the Business Insider website, which has come into possession of much of the documentation.
The Loon Project has the characteristics of a comic-strip spy story: it is the product of Google X, a laboratory of experimental projects of the Mountain View house. In addition to this network of 'internet hot-air balloons', the well-known project of a car that drives alone is also being studied. Both projects are now being developed through Alphabet. The system can completely revolutionize the use of the internet, replacing the current cable system with a 'home' or 'condominium' system based on a small antenna that transmits signals to the nearest balloon: the latter retransmits it through the others up to the first provider.
Loon, already at an advanced stage, is also being tested in Asia with the collaboration of the 3 largest Indonesian telecommunication groups: the probe balloons will be used on the 4 most populous cities in the country, in which more than two thirds of citizens are deprived of access to the web.
