Google’s Balloon Internet Experiment, One Year Later

When Google announced Project Loon on June 15, 2013, a lot of people were skeptical. But Google reports that since then, it has been able to extend balloon flight times and add mobile connectivity to the service.

As a result, Google’s expectations are flying even higher than the 60,000-foot strata where its balloons live. “This is the poster child for Google X,” says Astro Teller, who heads the division. “The balloons are delivering 10x more bandwidth, 10x steer-ability, and are staying up 10x as long. That’s the kind of progress that can only happen a few more times until we’re in a problematically good place.”

Since the first public test flights in New Zealand, Google’s balloons have clocked over a million and half kilometers.

Google made a different kind of advance with Loon when it added the capability to send data using the LTE spectrum -- making it possible for people to connect directly to the Internet with their mobile phones. (Loon’s original Wi-Fi connection required a base station and a special antenna.) Using LTE also helped Google boost the capacity of its connections. Recent Loon payloads are providing as much as 22 MB/sec to a ground antenna and 5 MB/sec to a handset.