Google parent company Alphabet is shutting down Loon, one of its “moonshots,” which aimed to deliver internet service via high-altitude balloons.
In a new blog post, Loon CEO Alastair Westgart confirmed that it’s winding down its nine-year-old Loon project and a two-and-a-half-year-old spinoff company because it can’t find a sustainable business model or willing partners. Loon was originally spun out of Alphabet’s “X” business unit, which is distinct from Google and home to most of its experimental projects.
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“While we’ve found a number of willing partners along the way, we haven’t found a way to get the costs low enough to build a long-term, sustainable business,” said Westgarth. “Developing radical new technology is inherently risky, but that doesn’t make breaking this news any easier. Today, I’m sad to share that Loon will be winding down.”
Google shutting down its internet balloon project Loon
The company is calling time on the project as its path to commercial viability was ‘much longer and riskier than hoped’.
Google is pulling its internet balloons from the sky, shutting down Loon as it was unable to make a business case for the project.
Loon built high-altitude balloons that could carry equipment for beaming cellular connectivity into remote areas that would be otherwise cut off from internet services.
It was one of Google’s ‘moonshots’, part of the research division X that has invested in ambitious but costly projects, such as self-driving cars. Loon was spun out as its own company in 2018.
Loon s final flight on January 22, 2021, 12:16
Bottom line: Loon, the Alphabet subsidiary tasked with bringing Internet access to some of the most remote parts of the world, is shutting down. The project was risky from the get go and ultimately, the team wasn t able to figure out how to make it a commercially viable venture.
Project Loon, as it was originally called, started as a research and development project under Google X back in 2011. With it, Google and parent company Alphabet used high-altitude balloons to create makeshift wireless networks to blanket remote regions with Internet access.
In 2018, the project was spun off as a separate company called Loon LLC.
Google parent Alphabet shuts project Loon that provided internet connections from giant balloons
Loon was first unveiled in 2013 and aimed to give internet connections using giant balloons drifting on currents high in the stratosphere.
India Today Tech | January 22, 2021 | Updated 18:41 IST
(Photo: Alphabet)
Highlights
Googles parent company Alphabet has shut down project Loon that gave internet service from high-altitude balloons in under-connected areas. Loon was part of Moonshot until 2018 after which it moved on to become an independent company within Alphabet.
According to X lead Astro Teller, Loons tech continues to live on in Project Taara that will use light to transmit information at super high speeds through the air.