Connecting the last mile in Africa: A volumetric analysis of internet balloons and rural base stations

Due to the lack of last-mile network infrastructure, rural Africa has been one of the least connected areas in the world. In recent years, multiple attempts have been made to connect rural Africa through various internet connectivity solutions, including balloons (Google’s Project Loon), drones (Facebook Aquila), and rural base stations (Huawei’s RuralStar). Designed by different tech companies, these infrastructure projects vary in terms of their scale, discourse, technical solution, and source of capital (Western, Chinese, and/or Africa), generating both failures and successes. When Google and Facebook shut down their last mile projects in the sky after several years, Huawei’s RuralStar— a lightweight base station solution — had been commercially used in more than 60 countries, mostly in Africa.

Based on interviews and archival research, this paper examines two cases of connecting the last mile through high-latitude balloons in the sky (Google Loon) and rural base stations on the ground (Huawei RuralStar) respectively. Approaching infrastructure as “volumetric practices”, I elaborate the politics and promises of the last mile in various scenarios. As I demonstrate, the contested nature of last-mile infrastructure is articulated through both human and non-human actors in the navigation, calculation, governance, and commercialization of the volumes. By analysing material, elemental, and affective assemblage in the two cases, I explain different ways of connecting and articulating the last mile. This paper sheds new light on recent volumetric competition for the global internet and makes theoretical contributions by bringing volumetric perspectives to media infrastructure studies.