T

echnology giant Google and three of Indonesia'€™s largest telecommunications operators have agreed on a collaborative '€œProject Loon'€ that will involve an internet-beaming balloon in the stratosphere to solve patchy internet connectivity issues in the archipelagic country.

The Communications and Information Technology Ministry says that the project will be focused mostly on eastern Indonesia, with several solar-powered balloons flown 20 kilometers into the air to deliver internet access through radio signals picked up by antennae attached to buildings on the ground.

Ministry spokesperson Ismail Cawidu said that the aim of the project would be to bring internet access to the relatively spottily covered areas of eastern Indonesia, such as Maluku and Papua. He explained that the trial for Project Loon will likely launch in 2016.

Google'€™s co-founder and Alphabet holding company executive Sergey Brin signed the agreement with the three heads of PT XL Axiata, PT Telkomsel and PT Indosat in Silicon Valley, California on Wednesday.

'€œThe agreement made at Silicon Valley was for testing and research purposes for the first two years. It'€™s still very much in the research field so we can'€™t say much yet. However, any cooperation [with Google] would have to prioritize the industry'€™s growth so as not to handicap national growth,'€ Ismail said on Thursday.

He added that the benefit of the project would be to open up parts of Indonesia that have little to no access to the internet and would benefit operators because the project could potentially lessen the cost of building transceiver stations (BTS) in rural areas.

Project Loon vice president Mike Cassidy said the Indonesian partnership marks the first time it will send signals from multiple telecommunications companies through a single balloon and that it will be the service'€™s largest deployment to date and could eventually reach 100 million users.

'€œWe'€™ve been kind of having an increasing succession of tests: tests for getting balloon flights to work, tests to test connectivity. It'€™s super exciting that this is going to serve actual communities,'€ said Brin as quoted by Reuters.

Google has already tested the project in Brazil, New Zealand and Australia, but with only single carriers.

While the idea seems '€œnoble'€, the critical turning point will be how these services are promoted to the general population, International Data Corporation (IDC) Indonesia wrote in a note distributed following the announcement.

'€œHow will this balloon in the sky help bring my modest village-centric business to a broader Indonesian audience and how will this enhance our existing quality of life? These will be the questions to address,'€ IDC Indonesia country manager Sudev Bangah said.

The critical element that has to be addressed is how to bring awareness and education to first-time users about the benefits of the internet and what access can do for them, he said.

'€œUltimately, these individuals will be more interested in the government building a road, bridge or providing transportation access for them, rather than internet access'€, Sudev explained.

IDC Indonesia estimates a total of 30 million smart phones and 5 million tablets are to be shipped into the country by the end of 2015, heavily dominated by the Android operating system that is used by 97 percent of all devices in the market. The heightened usage of the internet is due to the introduction of these lower-cost Android based devices to more remote areas, especially in eastern Indonesia.

Indosat spokesperson Adrian Prasanto explained that the role of the telecommunications firms would be to prepare the network as well as the technical aspects. Google would be the primary driver of the project and the telecommunications operators would mostly provide the technical assistance and also the broadband network.

'€œRight now the plan for the project is to test it out for the next two or three years, starting from 2016. It begins with tests, of course. We do not know who would be the initiator of creating a formal business scheme among the three operators, but what'€™s known is that we were encouraged to participate by the government,'€ said XL Axiata'€™s director for service management, Ongki Kurniawan.