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THE NEWS

Loon is marking progress towards the first commercial deployment of balloon-powered internet in Africa with its partner Telkom Kenya. Installation of ground infrastructure has begun, and all needed regulatory approvals have been secured to begin initial testing with balloons over Kenya in the first half of 2019.

Ground stations have been installed in Nairobi and Nakuru (courtesy images below and here). From these orb-shaped structures, internet connectivity is beamed up to a balloon 20km overhead. While the signal originates from places with connectivity, it can be sent across multiple balloons and hundreds of kilometers to areas without any infrastructure (see here for recently announced progress on this front). That’s part of Loon’s secret sauce: We bring the internet from where it exists now to where people need it without the difficulty and expense of building lots of new ground infrastructure in between.

This news comes on the heels of a United Nations report that found that over half of the world's population (3.8 billion people) still lacks access to the internet. In analyzing that report, the Web Foundation found a dramatic slowdown in the growth of global internet access, which dropped from 19% in 2007 to less than 6% last year.

QUOTES

Loon’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Alastair Westgarth says, “Together with Telkom Kenya, we have been working in close collaboration with the Kenya Communications Authority, Civil Aviation Authority, and others to secure the needed approvals to usher in Africa’s first-ever deployment of this innovative solution to connect unconnected and under-connected communities. We are grateful to these agencies for their support, collaboration, and innovative approach to expanding connectivity.”

Telkom Kenya says, “Telkom remains focused on bringing innovative products and solutions to the Kenyan market. Our association with Loon, will see us partner with a pioneer in the use of high altitude balloons to provide LTE coverage across larger areas in Kenya. This collaboration represents another important step towards Telkom’s quest to provide high-quality, reliable and affordable data offerings to its customers and Kenyans in under-served locations across the country.”

The Kenya Communications Authority’s Director General, Mr. Francis Wangusi says, “CA wishes to congratulate Telkom Kenya and Loon LLC on making progress toward the launch of Internet services in the underserved and un-served regions of the country, using new and innovative technologies. The Authority granted the requisite approvals to the two entities for deployment of Internet services using Loon’s Balloon powered technology on a trial basis. We encourage other industry players to leverage on new and emerging technologies to roll out ICT services, particularly in remote and rural parts of the country.’’

PHOTOS

These courtesy images are available for use with the credit: "Source: Loon." For more generic photos, please head over to https://loon.co/press.