Alphabet concludes its Loon project.
Alphabet
Google parent company Alphabet said Thursday that it is shutting down Loon, a project aimed at shutting down the internet connection of balloons floating in the stratosphere.
The project was born out of X, Alphabet’s self-described lunar factory for experimental projects, which also developed the company’s driverless car and delivery bumblebee services. However, Alphabet considered Loon’s business model unsustainable and said it would not be able to keep costs low.
“The road to commercial viability has proven to be much longer and more risky than hoped for,” Astro Teller, who leads X, said in a blog post. “So we made the difficult decision to close Loon.”
Loon, which started in 2013, was spun out of the X division three years ago. The project is intended to serve rural parts of the world that do not have a robust broadband infrastructure, and serve as flying cellular towers.
For Google, the effort is not just about altruism. If successful, it would have strengthened the great technology giant of the technology giant. The more people the company can get online, the more people can persuade it to use services like search, maps and YouTube.
Prior to the closure, Loon had already begun commercial deployment. In July, the company launched a pilot service in Kenya. Prior to that, the technology was tested in emergencies, including in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria swept across the island in 2017.
Teller said employees working on the project would reassign within Google and Alphabet, but a small group of workers would remain in the Loon team to end the Kenya program.