September 30, 2013  

BRCK & Project Loon – Two approaches to get Africa connected


loon

Recently I read an article about a crowd funded project named BRCK (pronounced as Brick) that wanted to create a solid way to provide internet to harder to reach areas such as the southern part of the African continent, where many projects have failed to provide internet due to the lack of infrastructure in many African countries. Another project that is currently trying the same is Project Loon, a very ambitious project that has been started by Google. In this blog-post I would like to introduce you to these two relatively new projects and discuss their advantages and disadvantages.

BRCK – Internet in a brick

BRCK first started as an idea to connect various areas in Africa to the internet. The founders of the project, all together under the name of Ushahidi, wanted to overcome several challenges that make it harder for areas in Africa to get connected. One of the main problems is the simple lack of a stable internet source. BRCK is able to connect to a lot of different internet sources like a simple ethernet cable, WiFi or Cellular Data (like 3G or 4G). Because of the capability to switch between these sources when required, it can form a much more stable source of internet. Together with this, BRCK runs on its own battery and can currently last up to 8 hours without recharging. In an e-mail conversation with one of the project managers, they indicated that the sun might be a reliable energy source for the BRCK in the future, making it even more suitable for those areas.

(Dis)advantages

BRCK has some advantages but also some disadvantages that should not be overlooked.

Because of the capability of the BRCK to adapt to different internet sources, it can make use of any available source;
Project has already reached the target on Kickstarter (See source link);

  While BRCK provides a very reliable internet connection when one or multiple sources are available, it does require at least one source to be present;
  The energy source that is currently provided only lasts for 8 hours;
  Still relying on crowd funds.

 

Project Loon – Hot Air Internet

A while back Google announced a very ambitious project named Project Loon. Both pointing to the huge scale of the project (only a lunatic would be able to come up with something like this) and to the fact that they want to use hot air balloons to spread the internet. As Google explains in their Blog post about Project Loon, before Google many others have tried to use high-altitude platforms to provide internet to areas that currently do not have access and are hard to reach. They are now using the winds in the stratosphere (±20 km height) and solar power to control their balloons at high altitudes. Challenges they had to face were for example keeping the balloons in the right path around the globe. By using the solar power they can control the balloons, allowing them to change their altitudes and bring them in a wind that will bring the balloon(s) to the desired location. They also designed very complex algorithms to keep the balloons in the area where they want them to stay near.

(Dis)advantages

Google has access to computing power, algorithms and has a good financial basis.
The balloons can cover large areas because of the height (20 km)

Is it really possible to send up enough balloons to provide solid internet? Many researches, scientists and even balloonists criticize Loon (see sources)
While Google has a very good financial basis to start the project, Google still is a commercial company, what is in it for Google?

Discussion

There are a lot of different views on this subject and even within the different projects views about how to execute the project differ. Project Loon seems to have very good intentions but I doubt whether the project will make things better for the inhabitants of the continent. I suppose they have other things to worry about than their WiFi connection. BRCK seems promising in the way it tries to combine different internet sources to establish a reliable internet source, but as displayed it has the disadvantage that it still requires some internet source, while that is exactly the problem in some areas.

Your comments/views are welcome as always!

Sources:

BRCK:
Meet BRCK: Internet for Africa (TED): http://www.ted.com/talks/juliana_rotich_meet_brck_internet_access_built_for_africa.html
BRCK Kickstarter Project: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1776324009/brck-your-backup-generator-for-the-internet
BRCK Official site: http://brck.com/

Project Loon:
Official Google Africa Blog: http://google-africa.blogspot.nl/2013/06/introducing-project-loon-balloon.html
Loons Official Site: http://www.google.com/loon/how/
Criticisms on Loon: http://www.techradar.com/news/internet/famed-balloonist-per-lindstrand-pops-google-s-balloon-powered-internet-dreams-1182968

 

 

 

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One response to “BRCK & Project Loon – Two approaches to get Africa connected”

  1. 343287hg says :

    First of all, I think your entry is a very interesting and exciting topic as in large parts of the planet, many people just couldn’t imagine living without the internet (including me!). However, there are still fragments in the world in which the internet is simply not accessible. Your blog entry correctly shows that especially in the rural parts of Africa, it is hard to establish these connections. I do think that ideas such as BRCK have the intentions to make the world “a better place”, by letting the Africans catch up with the rest.

    I like the idea that BRCK uses its capability to adapt to different sources, as this increases the likelihood of a proper connection. A huge disadvantage is indeed the short lasting battery of only eight hours. And as we all know (e.g. smartphones, notebooks etc.), the duration of batteries tend to get shorter the longer we use the gadgets. Nevertheless, this disadvantage could potentially be offset by the fact that solar energy might be implemented in the technology. I assume this would help the battery life extremely. Especially considering the main market is southern Africa, utilizing the sun is of course a viable solution.

    Regarding Loon, I must say I’m a little skeptic about the project. To me, the system just seems to be prone to failures. While watching the video you provided, I had the feeling the structure of the whole balloon didn’t seem robust enough. Additionally, as we all know, nature is unpredictable. How’s it going to be in ~20km altitude? Are the balloons really that easy to manage and control? And finally, how are they going to make sure the balloons will always remain at the specific altitude given at some point the amount of helium might decrease?

    Overall, I think that Loon is an ambitious project, however as of today, BRCK is the more feasible one!

    Reply

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