High-altitude balloons beaming the internet to remote areas are to be launched over Sri Lanka after the country became the first to sign up to Google’s Project Loon.
Michael Cassidy, the head of Project Loon, travelled to Sri Lanka this week to finalise the agreement with Ranil Wickremesinghe, the prime minister.
“The entire Sri Lankan island, every village, will be covered with affordable high-speed internet,” Mangala Samaraweera, the IT minister, said.
Muhunthan Canagey, the head of Sri Lanka’s Information and Communication Technology Agency, said he expected Google to have launched the balloons by March. “Service providers will be able to access higher speeds and improve the quality of their existing service,” he said. “We can also expect prices to come down.”
Project Loon was unveiled