Google in talks with operators for Project Loon pilot program in India

Google's Managing Director for South East Asia and India, Rajan Anandan in an interview with The Economic Times told that the company is in talks with local telecom operators in the country to pilot its Project Loon program.

For those unaware, Project Loon is Google's program to beam internet access from balloons floating thousands of feet up in the air to remote areas in developing countries. Each balloon can provide connectivity to a ground area about 40km in diameter using 4G LTE. 

Last December Google CEO Sundar Pichai, during his visit to India said that how important Project Loon is for India. Earlier this year in January, Indian Government gave Google green signal to pilot Project Loon in the country.

Rajan said the the government has been 'very supportive' with Project Loon, and for the launch it will be necessary to deal with local telecom firms, because “the actual provisioning of the service is done by a local telco”

According to ET, Google is currently in talks with BSNL, to provide local carrier network, as it looks to pilot the program in the country. However, an exact timeline for the pilot program is not yet known.

Google initially started testing its Project Loon balloons in New Zealand's South Island in 2013, where they were able to stay in the stratosphere for several days and beam 3G internet speed down to receiver stations on the ground. Last month technical trails of Project Loon began in Sri Lanka and Indonesia.