Google to roll out experimental mobile network in US

Mobile World Congress hears about launch of new network

Sundar Pichai, Google’s senior vice president of products, pictured during his presentation at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona
Sundar Pichai, Google’s senior vice president of products, pictured during his presentation at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona

Google will launch an experimental mobile network in the US in the coming months, the tech giant's senior vice-president of products Sundar Pichai has said.

Addressing Mobile World Congress about a Google branded network, Mr Pichai said “we don’t intend to be a network operator at scale. We are actually working with carrier partners”.

Google’s work in the area of mobile networks are quite literally sky high.

It’s Project Loon uses stratospheric balloons to beam Internet to the ground below.

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Mr Pichai said the balloons have now travelled more than 15 million kilometres of sky and some have stayed up for nearly 200 days.

“All this proves that balloons can function like floating cell towers in the sky. As one balloon floats away from your area, another floats into place,” he said.

“We have another promising project that’s getting off the ground...it’s called Titan,” he added.

The Titan team is building a new type of super lightweight solar-powered airplane that would be capable of hovering in one area of the stratosphere.