Project Loon will provide part of Kenya with 4G internet balloons in 2019

Somewhere in 2019, Project Loon will provide at least part of Kenya with a 4G connection through its ‘internet balloons’. To this end, the former business unit of Google is working with the Kenyan telecom company Telkom Kenya.

According to Telkom, the intention is that the balloons will provide a 4G connection, especially in rural areas and suburbs with a relatively low population density. The partnership with Telkom is Loon’s first commercial agreement in Africa. Google parent company Alphabet has previously realized a 4G connection with Project Loon for more than 250,000 people in Puerto Rico, the country that was hit hard by a hurricane last year.

According to Telkom, this is still a pilot that is taking place in an area in central Kenya. Some parts of this area are difficult to provide with regular connections, due to the mountains and the inhospitable terrain. The exact areas covered by the balloons suspended 20km and equipped with solar panels will be determined in the coming months.

Project Loon was previously part of Alphabet’s experimental laboratory X. Alphabet is the parent company of Google and recently decided to integrate both Loon and Wing into independent companies with Alphabet as the parent company. Wing is a company focused on developing drone delivery to reduce the cost and environmental impact of the transportation industry. Google X is Alphabet’s testing ground, in which the company investigates whether projects can lead to independent companies.

Telkom Kenya is a telecom company from Kenya, where two other larger players are active: market leader Safaricom and the Kenyan branch of Barthi Airtel, a telecom company from India. The Kenyan part of Airtel previously tried to effect a merger with Telkom, in order to better compete with Safaricom, but attempts to do so were aborted in June.