Loon LLC was an Alphabet Inc. subsidiary working on providing Internet access to rural and remote areas. The company used high-altitude balloons in the stratosphere at an altitude of 18 km (11 mi) to 25 km (16 mi) to create an aerial wireless network with up to 1 Mbit/s speeds. A reference to the balloons used, Project Loon began as a research and development project by X in 2011, but later spun out into a separate company in July 2018. In January 2021, it was announced that the company would be shut down due to lack of profitability.
A Loon balloon at the Christchurch launch event in June 2013
The Loon network worked by transmitting signal from the ground station through a number of balloons floating high up in the atmosphere and then being received by customers' receivers and phones. Also shown the wind travelling strategy, the internet connection and the area served
Alphabet Inc. is an American multinational technology conglomerate holding company headquartered in Mountain View, California. Alphabet is the world's third-largest technology company by revenue and one of the world's most valuable companies. It was created through a restructuring of Google on October 2, 2015, and became the parent company of Google and several former Google subsidiaries. It is considered one of the Big Five American information technology companies, alongside Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft.
Googleplex, home to Alphabet Inc., in Mountain View, California