Google Testing Balloon-Based Internet Access Using Licensed Frequencies

Up to this point, it appears that Google’s Project Loon has been testing high altitude balloons providing Internet access using unlicensed frequencies. Now Google is testing such balloons in Nevada, under a license that allows Google to use Long Term Evolution and WiMAX air interfaces.

Google will conduct six months of tests.

In addition to testing LTE with the balloons as repeater sites, Google also is testing terrestrial fixed radio service as well. The balloons float at 65,000 feet.

Project Loon is one initiative Google is pursuing as a possible means of delivering some amount of Internet bandwidth to remote areas. In the past, indications have been that “third generation mobile” speeds were possible.

One can only speculate about what the tests might portend. One might suggest that as a simple matter, Google wants to test the feasibility of either GSM or LTE as an air interface, in conjunction with licensed spectrum, using balloons as a repeater, and the terrestrial ground station as the equivalent of a satellite uplink.

It always is possible Google also is testing new modulation schemes, but as a practical matter Google would also have to understand and characterize performance of WiMAX or LTE links to balloons located 65,000 feet in the sky.

If the ground station will be tested as a backhaul transmitter for the balloons, propagation could be an issue, depending on the actual frequencies being used.

LTE ground stations designed for cellular applications--and power output suitable for cellular apps--tend to have range (at 700 MHz) of perhaps five miles, and 10 miles line of sight in a backhaul or point-to-point application, some would say.

But propagation at higher frequencies would be less, all other things held equal. And since the presumed uplink devices would include consumer handheld devices (phones, tablets, PC-equipped dongles), signal propagation matters.

Power limitations typical of such devices also are an issue. One presumes standard consumer devices, with standard power limitations, are desirable, so uplink propagation is among the issues Google would want to understand.