Google's project Loon close to launching thousands of balloons to provide internet access

Google has announced that its Project Loon that has been underway for a couple of years is now close to launching thousands of balloons in order to provide Internet access from the sky.

According to PCWorld, the project involves beaming down LTE cellular signals to handsets on the ground from balloons thousands of feet in the air, well above the altitude that passenger jets fly.

The Google engineer in charge of the project, Mike Cassidy, said that these many number of balloons would be required to provide reliable Internet access to users in remote areas that are currently not served by terrestrial networks.

Trials are currently underway with Telstra in Australia, Telefonica in Latin America and with Vodafone in New Zealand.