Alphabet's Google announces deal with Indonesian telecoms on Web access

By Deborah M. Todd MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (Reuters) - Alphabet Inc, the new holding company for Google, has teamed up with three Indonesian telecommunications companies as part of its effort to connect people in emerging markets to the Internet, to the country. Google officials, including co-founder Sergey Brin, and representatives from Indonesian companies Telkomsel, XL Axiata Tbk PT and Indosat Tbk PT signed an agreement Wednesday to bring so-called Project Loon to the nation of 250 million people. The project is an experimental program that eventually aims to deliver wireless Internet via connected balloons that would relay signals from cell phones and other gadgets to the Internet. Google and its partners will deploy hundreds of balloons in 2016 over the country of more than 17,000 islands in an effort to determine where gaps in service lie as part of the tests before full-scale service is launched. Google has already tested the project in Brazil, New Zealand and Australia but with only a single carrier. Project Loon Vice President Mike Cassidy said the Indonesian partnership marks the first time it will send signals from multiple telecommunications companies through a single balloon, and that it will be the service's largest deployment to date and could eventually reach 100 million users. "We've been kind of having an increasing succession of tests: tests for getting balloon flights to work, tests to test connectivity. It's super exciting that this is going to serve actual communities where it's going to make a big difference," said Brin. Cassidy said the effort is also a model for how Google will move the product into the commercial market. He said the telecommunications companies will use the trial period to determine pricing, the rollout and billing while Google works out technical issues. (Editing by Stephen R. Trousdale and Cynthia Osterman)