Sri Lanka – first country on earth to get islandwide 3G coverage with Google Balloons
The Information and Communication Technology Agency (ICTA) this week said that by the end of 2016 every little village in the country will be equipped wih access to Internet. The agency did not disclose the fact of how it is going to do it practically.
Last Tuesday it was revealed by global experts at the Temple Trees in Colombo that free Wi-Fi in a limited capacity with certain bandwidth would not only be provided to every village in Sri Lanka, but also to two thirds of the world population (5 billion) which doesn’t have Internet access around the world. By signing a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Google, Sri Lanka became the first country on earth to launch ‘Project Loon’ providing free Wi-Fi islandwide.
Google Vice President and Project Loon leader, Mike Cassidy at the event, said, “We will work with local telcos to provide access to Internet to every citizen in the country”. The balloon is made of two layers of polyethylene plastic with helium gas inside as in a normal gas balloon. There is a solar panel attached to the lower end of a 20 meter height balloon to track and control the balloon from being dislocated. “Sri Lanka’s total land area being approximately 65,000 square feet, one balloon can cover up to 5000 square feet. Therefore 13 balloons will be located 20 km above the surface of the earth in the stratosphere,” he added.
He also mentioned that pilot tests were done in New Zealand’s Christchurch since 2013 and on average a balloon can last for 115 days which can travel 19 times around the world covering 15 million km.
ICTA CEO Muhunthan Canagey, on the sidelines of the event, told the Business Times, “ICTA was working on this initiative for several months and despite the elections next month we wanted to launch and sign the MoU with Google on the day we had already planned”. He also stated that pilot tests will begin in Sri Lanka in March 2016 and the first balloon will be launched in air from the US to provide Wi-Fi for the first time in the world to Sri Lanka island-wide.
Also it was mentioned at the event that Sri Lanka is the first country in South Asia and second in Asia to implement free Wi-Fi on a national level. The initiative taken by ICTA is to connect the government and the citizens in the country with access to Internet. It was stated earlier that 3,500 government buildings will be equipped with free Wi-Fi at a speed of 100 Mbps connectivity which reduces the cost by 50 per cent and increases the efficiency by 200 per cent. By 2016 the e-citizens’ project will be completed and 10,000 free Wi-Fi hotspots will be implemented island-wide.
Also a cabinet approved world class Internet facility will be completed by 2017.