Dive Brief:

• Google's "Project Loon," which offers high-speed internet service in remote areas via a network of hundreds of balloons, is being tested in Sri Lanka.
• The balloons, which fly twice as high as typical jets and last about half a year, are being used in a joint venture with Sri Lanka's government.
• The government is receiving 25% of the venture and another 10% will be offered to local telephone companies.

Dive Insight:

This is an idea that might sound a little, well, loony, but it's not. By rigging up hundreds of networked balloons, Google plans to beam internet service to areas that would be nearly impossible to wire.

Sri Lanka's government isn't putting up any cash to get the 25% stake, by the way. Instead, it's allocating part of the broadcast spectrum to the project. That's no small offering in a country that depends so much on cellular service and other forms of wireless communications to connect its residents.

Google also has run Project Loon trials in the Australian outback and Indonesia.