Do you remember Loon? Led by Alphabet Inc., the parent company of Google, the Loon project wanted to provide high-speed internet access to remote communities – that were otherwise too difficult to connect – via a fleet of high-altitude balloons. However, Loon’s this soaring promise deflated last week, when the company announced that it will be winding down.
After more than nine years of research carried out to bring this project to fruition, Alphabet has failed to find a sustainable business model and partners for one of its most prominent moonshot projects.
It’s also possible that Loon while lowering the cost of delivering wireless coverage in a country like Kenya, failed to lower it enough.
Despite this slowdown in its development, the startup Loon (born from this project) seemed to be full of ambitions. Barely a year ago, the company obtained approval to launch its balloons over Kenya to provide commercial connectivity services, which it did successfully achieve months later. In addition, Loon had been of great help when an earthquake hit a remote Amazon region of Peru hard two years ago.
The company had experienced some success in early trials and initial deployments, but the reality is the inspiring mission to “connect the next (or last) billion users” touted by tech companies is more difficult than they often realize.
The current version of the system was able to provide 4G LTE coverage over 11,000 square kilometers, an area that would otherwise require 200 cell towers to cover. The internet balloons could communicate with each other using wireless millimeter-wave backhaul links.
However, while Loon’s initial idea seemed ultra-innovative, companies like SpaceX or Blue Origin quickly managed to make the startup’s speech obsolete. Through its Starlink project, SpaceX is constantly sending satellites into low orbit to design an artificial constellation that will provide high-speed Internet access wherever you are.
The Alphabet Loon project will be winding down. It does not mean Loon’s efforts were foolish or meaningless. Loon’s technological developments are already being carried over to another X project, which hopes to replace expensive fiber optic cable deployments with cheaper, over-the-air optical beams.
