Loon
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SoftBank is raising 30 billion yen (US$263 million) to fund its work in high-altitude mobile services from the stratosphere. -
Nearly a year after Google’s parent group burst a project to use balloons to deliver mobile coverage in east Africa, another scheme has popped up.
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Google’s former Moonshot project, Loon, has transferred its patents to SoftBank for the Japanese company’s own balloon-based base station work.
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Kenya’s telecoms regulator has criticised two of the country’s three mobile operators for poor service and threatened sanctions.
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Telkom Kenya is set to lose its balloon-powered 4G network, only months after it launched the service in the presence of the country’s president, Uhuru Kenyatta.
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An uncrewed aircraft carrying an advanced antenna can replace 200 conventional mobile base stations, or even up to 700 in some cases.
Forthcoming events
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Deutsche Telekom has demonstrated high-speed 4G mobile transmission from a remotely powered aircraft in a project to test ways to expand rural coverage.
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SoftBank’s HAPSMobile has successfully transmitted 4G mobile signals – including a video call – from an uncrewed solar-powered aircraft 19km above New Mexico.
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Telkom Kenya has activated its rural 4G mobile service using balloons from Google’s sister company Loon.
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The market for balloons, airships and other alternatives to mobile phone towers will be worth $4 billion in revenues over the next decade, according to a new report.
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Mobile operator Vodacom is to use Alphabet’s Loon balloon-carried base stations to extend coverage in Mozambique.
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Google’s sister company Loon is testing balloons that will provide 4G services across Kenya.
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A cohort of 11 C-suite executives from across the telecommunications, technology, aviation, and aerospace sectors have joined forces to establish an alliance to promote the use of high-altitude vehicles in the Earth’s stratosphere and “eliminate the digital divide” worldwide.
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Customers in Peru are now receiving LTE internet service from balloons, thanks to a collaboration between Google’s owner, Alphabet, with CenturyLink and Telefónica.
