
Google’s Balloon Internet Experiment, One Year Later - jervisfm
http://www.wired.com/2014/06/google-balloons-year-later
======
calinet6
The most striking part of this is the systematic quality improvement they
implemented. They went from an expert saying that long-term balloons were
impossible, to making it a reality by understanding the true engineering
variation causing failures.

We should look at every endeavor in this manner to improve quality. Look up W.
Edwards Deming, wonderful stuff on quality control that can be applied to
software just as well as manufacturing.

~~~
mathattack
Deming's career arc has been interesting. Neglected in the US to revered in
the Japan to revered in the US to forgotten in the US. Maybe now that we don't
fear Japan so much, we don't feel the need to obsess about his views on
quality.

Many of his ideas stand the test of time. He just doesn't fit neatly into any
academic curriculum.

~~~
calinet6
Such is the flaw of academic curricula. Extreme specialization in a world of
complexity.

Quality in Deming's point of view requires a deep multidisciplinary
understanding: statistics, psychology, engineering, business, economics, and
more.

The true irony is that now, more than ever, coming out of a recession and
having a corporate and manufacturing issue in the US, we need the
manufacturing and quality prowess that Japan exhibited post-WWII. We need
Deming.

I believe his main problem was that he was a horrible writer. We need someone
to take his ideas and clarify them much better than he could.

~~~
mathattack
His writing was fairly disorderly, even in his best work. Conversely, a lot of
insight is compressed into his 14 points.

I think a lot of the issues he explains go way beyond manufacturing. When I
think about the problems with performance reviews, I go back to him. Same with
training and leadership.

~~~
calinet6
Yes! Absolutely agree. They're generalizable to almost any kind of work. I've
been meaning to start a blog implementing his work in the relevant field of
Software development.

Who are you and how did you learn about Deming?

~~~
mathattack
I started my career in IT at P&G a long time ago. One of my mentors got me
started on a few business books, and worked Deming into the equation. An
interview with Robert Reich (yes, the same one) and him was included in a
training class there too. The writing resonated quite a bit then.

Who am I? That's a much deeper question. :-) Someone who has drifted between
data, technology and finance over a 20some year professional career.

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zw123456
I think it is really great that Google is trying this, I don't want to be too
pessimistic either as they seem to always defy the odds, but one of the
problems with any type of high altitude platform whether it is LEO,
Geosynchronous balloons or otherwise is that they cover a huge area, just by
nature, which limits the capacity. Terrestrial cellular technologies get
around this issue by being low to the ground so that the RF energy is
dissipated and you are able to re-use the frequencies with the next cell over.
With such high altitudes that is just not feasible. So I think this approach
will always have limited capacity. Also, the fact that it is moving will be a
challenge since both LTE and WiFi use OFDMA which is very sensitive to Center
frequency offset that can be caused by the Doppler shift as the balloon moves.
At 60kft, the uplink is going to be a challenge since most handsets transmit
at 200mw max so it will be difficult to achieve high data rates in both
directions. There are a number of other technical challenges that are ahead of
them as well, but I am very impressed with their perseverance. I hope they are
successful.

~~~
gonzo
Doppler shift isn't a huge problem for them. They use SDR and know their
velocity.

~~~
zw123456
The velocity is dependent on the vector, which you do not know since it is
dependent on where the user is. If the ground station is a known location
perhaps, but otherwise you cannot predict the vector. For commercial LTE at
700Mhz, the offset is 5Hz, above that the error rate starts to exceed the
specs. It is pretty tight for OFDM.

~~~
zw123456
Although probably no one is still following this thread, I feel obligated to
self correct a little here. Goggle really does their homework, I checked
around online and the average wind speed at 60,000ft is around 20Mph, so well
within spec for LTE (in fact there is an average wind speed minimum at 60kft,
which is obviously why they picked that speed) I erroneously assumed the wind
speeds had to be really high at that altitude and they are not.

~~~
gonzo
I know more than I can say here.

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tgb
It's always great to find that my initial pessimism was too hasty! Best of
luck to this exciting project.

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jackgavigan
_> ..since NOAA only supplies forecasts for 16 days out, Google now has to
make sophisticated guesses using a giant database of historical wind and
weather data._

It would be interesting if, as a side-effect of Project Loom, Google ended up
becoming the world's leading weather forecaster.

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metaobject
The article stated that Titan may be able to use Loon's wind data (exactly for
what it did not say) which implies that Google will (obviously) be collecting
and storing wind data for each balloon. This may open up a new line of
business for Google. We could soon see them selling access to their data to
the government ( _wind_ data, that is) or to other corporations that are
invoked in similar activities in that part of the atmosphere.

Furthermore, using data collected by the balloons, in conjunction with model
forecasts generated by NOAA, could lead to some interesting/challenging/fun
new algorithm development - using wind data from some subset of balloons to
predict the trajectory of some other subset of balloons. Sound like fun!

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ChuckFrank
I was invited to apply to Project Loon, which I did and unfortunately I never
hear back from them. I wish I had.

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Gustomaximus
Does anyone know how retrieval is ideally planned opposed to the current
search party option?

There must be a reasonable cost for each balloons electronics, as well as the
risk of this equipment hitting someone with balloon/time increases if left to
random descent.

~~~
johansch
The other option they are working on besides balloons seems more manageable in
that regard:

[http://www.cnet.com/news/google-buys-solar-powered-drone-
com...](http://www.cnet.com/news/google-buys-solar-powered-drone-company-
titan-aerospace/)

[http://motherboard.vice.com/read/google-will-beam-gigabit-
in...](http://motherboard.vice.com/read/google-will-beam-gigabit-internet-
from-solar-powered-drones)

------
frozenport
If you want to get the next billion connect why balloons? Why not a
conventional grid? Why not improve internet service in Mumbai? Is there a more
direct way to get the next billion connected? Does Google think there is no
competition in these rural areas?

~~~
Steko
It's hard to take this next 5 billion stuff seriously when there's still no
P2P mesh support built into Android.

~~~
contingencies
You absolutely hit the nail on the head with this comment.

Furthermore, does every developing country want high bandwidth surveillance by
developed countries? Because that's what a digitally unsophisticated populace
and a crap-ton of smartphones with social networks, high resolution CCDs and
IP telephony with dot gov access holes (eg. Skype) does...

Personally I think the China model (limit international bandwidth extensively,
block or muck with traffic on larger foreign surveillance systems slash free
web based services with invite buttons and 20-second polling apps with GPS
requirements) actually has some decent properties in terms of decentralizing
global power when viewed in this light: "ZOMG, furry foreign kittens!" They're
like, exactly the same in China.

~~~
frozenport
>>has some decent properties in terms of decentralizing global power

With modern transportation and communication infrastructure, I do not see a
future for a decentralized government. In this light I strongly prefer
America's stewardship compared China. I feel Chinese culture brings up people
with integrity problems, the cheating I saw at the university translates
directly to products that fall below expectation, and problems with
intellectual property that encourage copying rather then innovating. Not to
mention human rights and Democracy.

We both understand that China's model is motivated by the Chinese government
trying to protect itself from the Chinese people.

~~~
contingencies
Coming from someone who has actually lived in both countries, I find your
comments quite uninformed in light of the US's well documented abuse of global
human rights, eg. any book by Chomsky, Iraq/Afghan war logs, general foreign
policy since forever and slavery before that. We all see that your
media/military-industrial/government complex work for corporate masters, and
we have watched them smash liberty after liberty with things like
'renditions', torture, exporting of torture equipment, training and
military/diplomatic support for brutal dictators, attempts to undermine
sovereignty in most of the world, massive white collar crime/fraud,
destruction of freedom of the press, huge and growing poverty gap, no
education without extreme wealth, lip service to health care... I could go
on...

In China, people know where they stand, even if that's not a great place to
be. Similarly, their standard of living has raised materially across all
sectors of the population to degrees historically unprecedented over the last
hundred years, which has to be recognized. In the US, where people are dying
of obesity and alcoholism and fighting over access to shitty habit-forming
stimulants, the following quote by - I believe - one of your founding fathers
most certainly applies: _There are no people so hopelessly enslaved as those
who believe they are free_.

I'm not condoning China's excesses, which are many and despicable, but for the
average individual in much of the country it's arguably a better deal than the
US.

Both countries are quite similar in my view: converging on a highly
dynastically corrupt militarized police state with lip service to democratic
principles and human rights.

~~~
frozenport
>>There are no people so hopelessly enslaved as those who believe they are
free.

What can I not do in the USA?

>>it's arguably a better deal than the US

Probably not true, given the unidirectional flow of immigration. Also the
average household income is 8x less.

>>Both countries are quite similar in my view

I can't do business with Chinese companies, while I can with members of the
civilized world. I see a strong difference in culture.

>>converging on a highly dynastically corrupt militarized police state

Having lived in Russia for 10 years I can tell you the USA isn't corrupt. You
can get stuff done without paying bribes and your competitors doesn't go to
the local politicians to shut you down, you aren't asked to do underhanded
favors.

~~~
contingencies
_What can I not do in the USA?_

Good question. How about these: Rely on any real form of social security.
Become meaningfully involved in politics without first becoming so indebted to
corporate / special interest parties that your independence is essentially
compromised. Start a financial services business of any real capacity without
massive outside investment. Start most forms of large scale business without
paying out millions of dollars to lawyers. Get a decent education without
becoming stupendously in debt. Find ten people at the local pub that are able
to meaningfully discuss politics, history, geography or philosophies beyond
their borders. Eat much in the way of authentically decent food from other
countries outside of a few extremely wealthy enclaves. Live easily and
comfortably without a car. Live easily and comfortably without a cellphone.
Live, work and pay taxes as a citizen of another country, without fear of
being extradited with mere days to get out and go through the whole hassle
again if you have to change jobs, if you don't want to commit to a green card
scenario. Avoid, for more than a town or so, people that subscribe to
religious conservative radio and watch fox news. Receive well deserved state
protection when distributing truths about organizations like Scientology.
Avoid draconian punishments like the death penalty and effective long-term
incarceration without trial for whistleblowing or opposing established
media/publishing congolomerate interests? Hell, this should be a twitter hash
tag.

 _unidirectional flow of immigration_

All developed countries have this. Fact: almost nobody from other developed
countries has an interest in moving long term to the United States... look up
the statistics on the green card lottery if you wish.

 _I can 't do business with Chinese companies, while I can with members of the
civilized world. I see a strong difference in culture._

That's abusive and false. China successfully exports more products in more
categories to more destinations than any other country, last time I checked.
Maybe the problem is you.

 _Russia_

No idea about Russia. From what I read, they basically skipped the development
of a facade pretend-representational government and went straight to a mafia
state. I guess you have to give them points for efficiency!

------
Shivetya
Is there a reason not to anchor some of these? I know your very height
restricted when anchored because of line weight, but why not anchored balloons
as poor man towers? Or are they simply trying get beyond most weather?

------
micampe
There is one thing I don’t understand: the balloon can have a powerful enough
antenna to send information to a phone 60,000 or more feet away, how does the
phone talk back to the balloon?

~~~
Gustomaximus
It seems there is a ground based repeater, at least initially. See the second
article picture: 'Project Loon team members install a Loon Internet antenna
while schoolchildren look on.'

That said we have satellite phones now. Given the lower altitude of balloons
getting a signal back should be realistic over future developments.

~~~
micampe
The article says the repeater is only for wifi, phones connect directly.

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lchengify
Reminds me of the low-orbit satellite network in Society of the Mind.

IIRC, the protagonist wanted a internet-connected TV product with a small
antenna. The only way to do it was to create a satellite network where the
satellites were so close they would re-enter after a short timespan. It was
countered by a continuous stream of launching satellites.

Replace "TV" with "LTE Phone", it's basically the same idea / value add.

~~~
Wingman4l7
Surely some variation on high-altitude aircraft would be more cost-effective
than continually launching satellites?

~~~
taterbase
The [http://internet.org](http://internet.org) project is doing just that.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxX6r-xDgG4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxX6r-xDgG4)

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metabren
Am I the only one that thinks these are creepy?

> a full ring of between 300 to 400 balloons circling the globe

I don't want Google looking back at me whenever I look up into the sky.

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lafar6502
What about all kinds of national radio spectrum regulations or
broadcasting/telecom laws? Will these baloons be allowed to operate
everywhere?

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socrates1998
I am curious, why can't you tie the balloons to the ground and just have them
stay in the same place permanently until they lose their air?

Could you then create a continual service over a grid like network of these
balloons? Or are the balloons too expensive to do this?

~~~
teraflop
The balloons only have so much buoyancy, and 60,000 feet of cable would end up
being pretty heavy. Not to mention that the cables would be a hazard to
aircraft navigation.

~~~
juice13
And people could steal the equipment by pulling the baloon down.

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darklrd
It seemed like not feasible when I heard about it. The way they have
approached every obstacle along with extensive testing - it's commendable.

~~~
howon92
I think they deserve to be called more than "it's commendable." I think they
did awesome!

------
Sonthun
Has anybody seen any specs on these? Weight? Number of batteries? Solar
panels?

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johnsteve
Good initiate taken by Google and the other company.

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tomcam
Article does not address danger to aircraft.

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bostan
Chinese users are excluded, and if not, HN numbers will be way higher.

