The first of 3 balloons slated for the trial drifted into Sri Lankan airspace on Mon, once being launched from South America, Sri Lanka's data and Communication Technology Agency chief Muhunthan Canagey told foetoprotein.
Google is predicted to start testing flight controls, spectrum effectivity and different technical problems later on.
Sri Lanka's government declared this month it'll have a twenty five % stake in an exceedingly venture with Google, reciprocally for allocating spectrum for the project.
The government won't be finance capital, and ten % of the corporate would be offered to phone company suppliers on the island.
The government signed a memo of understanding with Google last Gregorian calendar month for Project Loon, with the aim of boosting coverage on the island, lowering costs and increasing competition.
Service suppliers would be ready to deliver higher speeds by victimisation the property beamed down from Google's balloons, that float regarding 20km up within the layer.
The government hopes the project can extend coverage to the complete island, serving to to spice up broadband penetration. There ar presently regarding three.3 million mobile broadband subscriptions in, Sri Lanka, that incorporates a population of twenty million.
Google and Facebook ar trialling various technologies and models to increase net property to poorly-served elements of the globe.
Google last year signed a memo of understanding with 3 Indonesian operators to increase coverage across the country's islands this year.
Facebook has additionally signed a deal to deliver broadband to rural communities in Africa via satellite. However, its contentious Free Basics arrange last week hit a snag in Republic of India once the nation's telecoms regulators dominated it contraband.
Although Free Basics did provide the prospect of extending property to folks that could not afford a mobile subscription, Facebook's service was criticized for its potential to make a two-tier net, with associate open net for the wealthy and a gated one for the poor.
