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Google The Internet Businesses

Alphabet Shuts Down Loon Internet Balloon Company (techcrunch.com) 56

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
Google's parent firm, Alphabet, is done exploring the idea of using a fleet of balloons to beam high-speed internet in remote parts of the world. From a report: The firm said on Thursday evening that it was winding down Loon, a nine-year-old project and a two-and-a-half-year-old spin off firm, after failing to find a sustainable business model and partners for one of its most prominent moonshot projects. The demise of Loon, which assumed spotlight after the project helped restore cell services knocked out by a hurricane in Puerto Rico, comes a year after the Android-maker ended Google Station, its other major connectivity effort to bring internet to the next billion users.
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Alphabet Shuts Down Loon Internet Balloon Company More

Alphabet Shuts Down Loon Internet Balloon Company

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  • Musk the loon killed the baloon loons (Score:5, Interesting)

    by kot-begemot-uk ( 6104030 ) on Friday January 22, 2021 @12:06PM (#60978626) Homepage
    Well, the idea of Loon was predicated on the technical impracticality of large microsatellite fleets. Elon (and the drop in prices by other launchers to compete with him) made these practical. So game over.

    • Re:Musk the loon killed the baloon loons (Score:5, Insightful)

      by timeOday ( 582209 ) on Friday January 22, 2021 @12:12PM (#60978668)
      Apparently so. The problem is Starlink still requires a large enough antenna on the ground that cellphones can never talk to it directly.

      • Re:Musk the loon killed the baloon loons (Score:4, Interesting)

        by timholman ( 71886 ) on Friday January 22, 2021 @12:26PM (#60978734)

        The problem is Starlink still requires a large enough antenna on the ground that cellphones can never talk to it directly.

        That won't matter in the slightest to the people needing high-speed residential service out in the middle of nowhere, or for people trying to get out from under the thumb of having only one or two crappy ISPs to serve them. That's a lot of potential customers. I may check out Starlink myself, and I'm living in the middle of a city with an Xfinity / AT&T duopoly.

        • Oh sure, Starlink is still cool.

          I can't imagine Xfinity / AT&T being undercut by Starlink in a city, or even having the capacity to force them to lower prices by undercutting them - but I'd be very happy to be proven wrong.

          • Fiber will always beat Starlink on bandwidth, latency and capacity where it is available and competitive, which is in cities. In rural areas there is not much fiber, and even the cost of getting it from a highway where it runs to a house one mile away can be exorbitant unless the homeowner can share the cost with enough neighbors. Starlink is for out there in God's country.

      • "Apparently so. The problem is Starlink still requires a large enough antenna on the ground that cellphones can never talk to it directly."

        My first car-phone also weighed 35 pounds.

        • Re:Musk the loon killed the baloon loons (Score:4, Interesting)

          by Etcetera ( 14711 ) on Friday January 22, 2021 @01:06PM (#60978930) Homepage

          "Apparently so. The problem is Starlink still requires a large enough antenna on the ground that cellphones can never talk to it directly."

          My first car-phone also weighed 35 pounds.

          Yeah, they're different markets here. Starlink is excellent for fixed installations, RVs, and ships at sea that need a broadband-approximating solution. Emergency comms deployed as a team can use sat links on vehicles, while individuals roaming can make Iridium calls.

          Starlink works in developing countries as a village-level uplink, but that still requires local wireless communication tech, which might be out of reach.

          Kind of odd, IMO, that Loon is being fully wound-down, as I feel like there's got to be a niche where this could prove useful. At the very least, I'm sure there's some light military value there.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by cusco ( 717999 )

          Were you a drug dealer? Those were the only people I knew who had car phones at that time. :-)

          Because of the cost and lack of coverage my brother-in-law and his brother opted to get HAM radio licenses for radios in their work trucks.

          • The first carphone I saw was owned by my scout leader who sold agricultural equipment and service, which makes a ton of sense. I am not sure if the network it used was cellular, or just one radio station, but the handset part resembled a phone and it did allow you to dial normal landline numbers, and receive calls from them.
        • That was because old phones had a large battery and circuit board. There are practical limitations to how small you can make a satellite antenna. (Or really any antenna but a satellite antenna has to be extremely sensitive.) Unless we somehow discover magic? Maybe through some AI driven iterative process that engineers have not figured out yet?
        • The problem is that monetising "the next billion users" is next to impossible when they're in places like Botswana, Honduras, and Cambodia. It was never about getting the net to the next billion users, it was about monetizing another billion livestock. Now they've found they can't do it, they're pulling the plug. Nothing to do with the tech.
      • It really is a shame all phones didn't have this limitation.

        -Hey get that phone off your face.
      • Maybe not, but you could easily build a cell tower with a wind turbine, a solar panel, and a Starlink antenna basically anywhere with only minimal support requirements.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by cusco ( 717999 )

      Well, it was a dumb name anyway, loons can't fly worth a shit. They're incredible swimmers though, they should have reserved the name for some underwater project and named this one Condor or some other other soaring bird (probably not Albatross, though).

    • Well, the idea of Loon was predicated on the technical impracticality of large microsatellite fleets.

      That, and a really bad choice of name.

  • They realized Starlink is the future?

    • They realized that Comcast/AT&T/etc and their army of lobbyists will never allow any real competition.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Luthair ( 847766 )
      I'm not sure what equipment was required for Google Loon, but the monthly cost of starlink and the cost of the hardware seems like its financially out of reach for the next billion.
      • One Starlink terminal and WiFi can give Internet to a lot of people in a remote area.
      • The same was true of automobiles, indoor plumbing, and even mobile phones at one point. Now all of those are fairly ubiquitous. Maybe Starlink itself doesn't bring cheap broadband to the masses in remote parts of the world, but anyone who demonstrates the ability to make a profit offering some service tends to attract others to try their hand in the same area.

      • The Loon balloons hosted mobile 4G LTE cell sites. Your existing cell phone was compatible.
        Using the system required licensed frequencies from incumbent mobile carriers on the ground.

      • The cost is puny compared to the costs of laying fibre in remote areas. How is it "financially out of reach for the next billion"?

    • It probably is. When you consider that for a signal to have a 100 miles radius one needs to be at least 6668ft high due to the Earth's curvature then you're well in the way of normal aircrafts, which travel at a height of up to 42,000ft. All the big weather takes place within the troposphere, which goes up to around 55,000ft. The balloons were meant to fly in the stratosphere, next above the troposphere. But when the ballons come down, and they will, then it's anybody's guess what could go wrong. Each time

    • I am afraid that in the near future there will be a Kessler syndrome [wikipedia.org], so balloons will become again an option.
  • Just saw this other moonshot at Google that was shut down recently too (Makani): https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

      Google's "moonshots" seem more like interesting ideas for small startups to explore.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by AuMatar ( 183847 )

        Except for cost. The reason Google was putting money into it was that it was a high cost, high risk, high reward idea. Something that could significantly impact Google's bottom line if it worked. They're beyond the reach of a small startup.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

          Was it? It doesn't seem like those balloons should cost that much. Looks like the Internet estimates about 20k per, which seems reasonable. So you could buy a few dozen and see if you could sign up some actual customers in a decent sized service area for what you'd find in some VCs couch cushions.

          A moonshot it was not, even if Google did dump money on it without regard for feasibility.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cusco ( 717999 )

      Yeah, saw that coming. It was a cool idea, though.

  • At least we won't be wasting our helium filling these huge balloon, so that's a good thing.
  • This was the dumbest idea they ever came up with and it just speaks to the fact that they try to copy everyone else. Apparently, they were unaware that balloons pop in upper atmosphere and over time?... Google / Alphabet doesn't innovate anymore, they steal/copy ideas or buy companies that already have successful products. That's all they do now, they're huge copycats and it's because Google is mostly run by individuals from India now. All they know how to do is copy other people's work, because their o
  • The cool thing about StarLink and the advancements of solar power and batteries is that it is now relatively trivial and affordable to set up 100% off-grid, solar powered and battery-backed-up access points/cell towers where ever you want. No power cabling, no telecom infrastructure needed. Can use a StarLink link as backhaul.
    This will probably be bandwidth restricted by the backhaul - but would still be awesome.

  • Much as I hate to admit it, because I can't stand the man behind it or the orbital pollution, but Starlink would make them obsolete overnight, without any real redeeming or unique feature they could offer.

  • Ask me if you want more information.

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