
Project Loon - sabalaba
http://www.google.com/loon/
======
waterlesscloud
There's a lot that I don't like about Google, but I do like that they're
fucking insane.

~~~
kimlelly
Is it really a good idea to use Google even on the lowest layer, meaning the
network itself, for the transportation of your data?

In light of the surveillance state that the US has become and the
collaboration of government agencies with the tech giants, I say:

Support the _small_ guys!

~~~
gcapell
What makes you think the _small_ guys will protect your data _better_?

~~~
kryten
Because they are minor targets.

------
simonsarris
"I love those who yearn for the impossible." -Goethe

I wish other large companies showed such ambition. Telecoms like AT&T can't
even be bothered to roll out the network upgrades they promised in the early
2000's.

~~~
pizza
Minor nitpick: AT&T has done a shit-ton of research:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Labs](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Labs)

edit: apparently a different beast than today's AT&T

~~~
aidenn0
Minor nitpick: The company now known as AT&T is essentially Cingular wireless;
they bought the remnants of AT&Ts cell network and the rights to the name.

~~~
wilfra
Actually that is the company now known as AT&T Wireless. The company now known
as AT&T was one of the 24 'Baby Bells' that were created when antitrust
regulators broke up AT&T (the one that created Bell Labs) in 1984.

The company used to be known as SBC Communications but changed it's name to
AT&T after acquiring what was left of AT&T (mostly long-distance phone
services) in 2005.

Through a long series of acquisitions AT&T now owns 11/24 Baby Bells.

Sources:

[1][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT%26T#History](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT%26T#History)

[2]My grandfather worked for AT&T for his entire career and I've involuntarily
listened to a minimum of 100 hours of company history throughout my life.

~~~
sshconnection
Colbert explains it in detail:
[http://www.ebaumsworld.com/video/watch/955486/](http://www.ebaumsworld.com/video/watch/955486/)

~~~
rtkwe
ebaumsworld is still slapping their watermark on anything that moves?

------
ChrisNorstrom
It's fascinating to see how well Google has branched out. It started as just a
search engine competing with Lycos, AltaVista, & Yahoo and yet they didn't
just stop, they kept going. They built all these new services & products
around their core product (search) and it's paid off tremendously.

It's definitely something to model future companies off of.

When you win the race, don't stop, keep running.

~~~
temp453463343
Almost everything they're done is centered around ads and getting more data on
their users to sell more ads. Even this project, in the end it's about getting
more people online to look at their ads. (not sure how much ad revenue you can
get from poor places, but whatever)

EDIT: To those saying they're playing the long game; Playing the long game
doesn't make sense. The long game is being fully wired. By the time poor areas
become economically important enough to be advertised to, they will have
traditional telecoms servicing them.

~~~
dannyr
I feel bad for people like you.

I fee bad that you can't believe that some people or company with money just
wants to make the world a better place.

You said it yourself. Google probably won't make money. Maybe, just maybe,
they just want to do something good.

~~~
mh-
without addressing the remainder of your comment..

 _> I feel bad that you can't believe [..]_

the same could be said for naiveté.

~~~
Sven7
Contrast their behavior, with other companies sitting on mountains of cash.

They don't need to do this. Yet they do. That's good enough for me.

Though opening up their index and creating a search marketplace might seal the
deal.

~~~
goldfeld
Whoa, they'd rather do a thousand as many baloons as whatever amount they're
doing now, than that last part of your post. That's, you know, core business.

~~~
Sven7
:)

But think about it...right now they have a _random_ bunch of 10 or so tabs
(flights, recipes, patents etc) above the search box. Is that it?

To expand search to its full potential that list has to expand.

What better way to do it than create a marketplace? It would be a good
experiment to run a pilot in some small country or city and see what happens.
Unlimited API access to google search...any app built on top of that platform
that gets X number of hits becomes another tab above your search bar...for a
price...or advertisers could make it free cause domain based search can get
them better targeting.

------
albertsun
That's odd, I'm looking at my calendar and it doesn't say April 1st.

~~~
asperous
That's the first thing I thought as well!!

~~~
currysausage
[http://www.google.com/tisp/](http://www.google.com/tisp/) :)

~~~
leoc
[http://googlepress.blogspot.com/2004/04/google-gets-
message-...](http://googlepress.blogspot.com/2004/04/google-gets-message-
launches-gmail.html) :D

------
tomasien
It's so encouraging to see a Hacker News comment section that is almost
overwhelming informative and positive. I get varying amounts of flak for
constantly posting about the quality and nature of HN comments, but as an
unabashed optimist it means a lot to me to me.

~~~
msoad
Yeah, I'm looking for a discussion about technology and maybe somebody have an
idea how latency would be. But all I see is typical comments you find in any
social network.

------
mad44
Eric Brewer, who joined Google a year or so back, has been working on
Technology and Infrastructure for Emerging Regions. He had similar ideas.

I wonder if he has been involved with this project.

[http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~brewer/](http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~brewer/)
[http://tier.cs.berkeley.edu/drupal/](http://tier.cs.berkeley.edu/drupal/)

~~~
mino
Eric is an altruistic guy and a great scientist. I'm sure he's building great
stuff at his Google sabbatical!

------
ajhit406
I really enjoyed the subtle design / aspects of the loon landing page.

Starting with the darker background of the thermosphere and progressing into
the twilight of the troposphere was a really nice touch. I also just noticed
the small altimeter on the left of the page.

Also the whole phonetic wordplay with "loon" and "lunar" was cute. Coming from
New Hampshire, I naturally immediately thought of the aquatic bird:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loon](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loon)

But the "lunar" aspect wasn't lost on me.

Kudos, this type of subtle design is refreshing in the wake of the iOS7
release.

~~~
pettazz
I immediately thought of "loon" as part of "balloon" and also "loon" as in
insane or ridiculous. It's a perfect name for something so ridiculous with the
potential to be ridiculously awesome.

------
caffeineninja
This is an awesome idea.

However, in my mind, there is a potential issue that the article doesn't seem
to mention.

How do they keep the balloons up for a long period of time, fighting all of
the different variables of weather, gas leakage, temperature variances,
material degradation due to being outdoors?

Fiber and copper stays in the ground undisturbed for decades, because it's
cheap & low maintenance, barring from breaks.

While this seems cheap and easy to deploy, keeping it running is another thing
entirely

~~~
homosaur
I'm assuming there's some sort of monitoring onboard system and when they need
new parts, they'd just land at one of these predetermined stations and be
refitted. There weren't a lot of details in that video but it seemed to me
like they implied they were inexpensive and easy to swap parts from.

~~~
gbog
More likely they will not even bother to fix broken balloons and just launch
new ones.

------
marcamillion
Wow....this is mind-blowing.

The potential impact of a globally connected internet is crazy. No longer can
a country fully filter/control all internet traffic.

This could be a major boon to democracy.

I wonder if Google did this, partially to piss China off.

This seems like an awesome way to get around the 'Great Firewall'.

~~~
cheeseprocedure
I wonder how long it'll be before reports surface of authoritarian countries
deploying anti-Loon lasers.

In all seriousness, I'm curious how difficult it would be to jam this network.

~~~
wmf
It's low power in known bands, but coving a very large area. Maybe somebody
could launch their own jamming balloons. In the short term Google says they'll
abide local laws so I suspect no jamming will be needed.

------
jared314
Previous discussion:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5775324](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5775324)

The amazing thing is this has been a rumor[0] tossed around for years (2008).

[0]
[http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080220/123009308.shtml](http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080220/123009308.shtml)

~~~
asperous
Luckily it's not a rumor any more, Look at the article's url!

~~~
jared314
I'm not sure what you mean. The previous conversations, and history of
stories, offer insite into the technical, cultural, and legal issues that
everyone might find valuable. News without context is just hype.

------
blinkingled
> Loon balloons are superpressure, which enable them to stay aloft for 100+
> days at a time. This is far longer than typical weather balloons, which last
> for a matter of hours. Loon balloons are also unique in that they are
> steerable and entirely solar powered.

It's like they are putting up cheap, disposable, steerable satellites up in
the stratosphere! Genius.

Would be pretty interesting to understand the monitoring and control system
for the balloons - not sure if they can bring back the failing balloons to a
maintenance site to refurbish and relaunch them or they just dump the debris
along with the failed balloon. I suppose at least the electronics aboard must
be reusable for a time longer than the 100+ days the balloon stays afloat.

------
synctext
Trying to do an "Energy Budget" with my low-power research background. Please
help with the balloon angle.

.1 - 1W Balloon height adjustments

.1 - .5W Flight tracking, control and management

.5 - 2W RF power and conversions (balloon-to-ground)

.5 - 2W RF power and conversions (balloon-to-baloon)

1 - 2W Packet routing, processing and baseband processing

Essential missing insight: how to they lower/rise the balloons and
deflate/inflate them? With 100days service time you cannot simply vent gas. So
a pump and compressor is needed?

~~~
mtdewcmu
Did it say somewhere that they last 100 days? That number sounds familiar, but
I couldn't find it just now when I went back to the site. I wonder how far the
balloons would travel during those 100 days. As you can tell from the video,
they're going to spend most of their lives drifting over the ocean.

Edit: there are more details here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5887330](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5887330)
Apparently they circle the Earth every 14 days.

------
jiangth
This is fucking nuts. I feel weird. So this is what real innovation feels
like.

------
mtdewcmu
This sounded like a great idea to me at first. But,

Each balloon provides coverage to a 40km diameter area. That's a lot of
balloons to cover rural Africa. It would help a great deal if the balloons
could be made to stay in precise locations, like geostationary satellites. I
thought maybe they had solved that problem (which would be amazing). But, I
guess not. They said in the video that the balloons would follow the wind all
the way around the Earth. Meaning, at any given time, the overwhelming
majority of balloons are over the ocean. The difficulty, then, is not merely
putting enough balloons up to cover the ground in 40km increments, but
covering the ocean as well, in a solid band around the entire Earth. It's not
hard to imagine that a stupendous number of balloons would be required to
provide any meaningful level of coverage.

I think this is more Google hubris than technical innovation.

~~~
selvakn
The balloons are not going to move in one direction though. The video also
mentioned you can steer the balloons, which means, there is way to keep them
above the ground and not the ocean.

~~~
sicxu
Just cover the continent will require a lot of balloons. The world has
148,429,000 sq km. If you cover 1600 sq km per balloon, that is 92768
balloons. Just cover Africa will require around 20k balloons. It will only
work out, if Google can increase the coverage area per balloon.

~~~
gaadd33
20K ballons doesn't seem like that many unless each one costs a ton of money.
From an industrial production point of view it barely seems like a drop in the
bucket given how many cars/phones/planes we produce.

------
nostromo
I've always wanted a near-live satellite image for Google maps.

If this takes off that'll be possible. I could find a parking spot from the
sky. :)

~~~
Kilo-byte
Loon has no such capability.

[http://www.google.com/loon/faq/#tab=technology](http://www.google.com/loon/faq/#tab=technology)

Q: WILL THE BALLOONS HAVE CAMERAS OR CAPTURE ANY IMAGERY OF THE GROUND?

A: No.

~~~
sicxu
It does not have it now, because they want to focus on the basics. Once that
is done, adding a camera is not a big deal.

~~~
dag11
But I feel like that would make the media -- followed by average people -- go
crazy. Consider the current NSA news combined with "Google puts hundreds of
cameras in the sky".

~~~
Heliosmaster
And what happens when "Google puts thousands of cameras on our faces" ?

~~~
TeMPOraL
Well like if you didn't have a camera in your pocket for years. Or like
cameras hidden in pens weren't available cheaply for years. Seriously, the
time for people to be scared of others recording things is has already passed
(mostly unnoticed).

------
ptc
Can someone explain why this is more cost effective than other alternatives?
The need for specialized antenna's on the ground seems to be a negative.

Also, does Google just subsidize the entire thing? How is this paid for long
term? How is it so much cheaper than the alternatives that not only can they
roll it out to 5-6 billion people, but also allow people living on cents a day
to purchase the service?

~~~
emiliobumachar
If it's _very_ cheap, it could pay itself just with the legions of potential
costumers (or eyeball pairs, to be cynical) it brings google.

~~~
ptc
Do you have some back of the envelope calculations of cost of this versus
satellite or extending copper wire? I'm fairly ignorant on the subject, but
would love to hear more.

~~~
emiliobumachar
No, I'm also fairly ignorant on the subject.

------
superasn
Unless of course it is a trade secret, how wonderful would be if the engineers
at Google would release more detailed diagrams of the balloons, circuits, and
how it is supposed to work (the pump, antenna and everything, not the
simplistic version). Maybe they are having some challenges which can be crowd
sourced for ideas too. They have obviously done a lot of research and this
idea can certainly spawn other awesome ideas or help other indie projects.

Project like these can be a really nice experiment on teaching and getting
ideas from bored internet hackers.

------
cpeterso
Any news about other "moonshot" projects that Google[x] is working on besides
self-driving cars and Loon?

~~~
bitsoda
I think Google Glass started out as a Google[x] project as well. I'd love to
be a fly on the wall in their division.

~~~
turing
Seconded. I think it would be just as interesting to see the projects that
they've killed. They've said before that one of the goals of Google[x] is to
fail fast. I imagine they've already accumulated quite the graveyard of crazy
proposals.

------
kriro
"Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it
universally accessible and useful."

Very well in line with their mission statement. I love it because it's so much
"ah screw it we'll just try this crazy sounding idea"

[I wrote a paper during my university time that was a thought experiment on
the availability of cheap internet for everyone...time to dig it up :D]

------
joonix
They are testing it in New Zealand hinterland.

I wonder what implications this is going to hvae for NBN in Australia. They
are spending tons of money to launch two satellites to provide access to
remote towns. Google is showing they can do it for cheaper, possibly, and with
Fiber they are showing gigabit FTH can be done cheaply...

~~~
hhandoko
I'm actually more concerned about what happens to the NBN if there's a change
in government (looking more likely as each day passes).

------
ekianjo
Project Loon to bring NSA Spying to Everyone :)

~~~
LoganCale
While the geek in me acknowledges this is an awesome project and I'm really
glad to see them giving it a try, the sarcastic cynic in me had the first
thought that this was a great way to bring the the remaining 2/3 of the world
under NSA surveillance.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Wasn't "NSA's free access to Google data" debunked, like, 3 days ago? Why
people still keep talking like they give away all the data?

That's the problem with mass media. Not only a lie spreads faster than the
truth, it's also the only thing remembered after the dust settles.

~~~
ekianjo
Has not be debunked in any way. As far as I understand it's far from clear
what the NSA can actually do. Declaration of officials who are under oath to
protect secrets is worth nothing.

------
sethvincent
I'm more excited about this than Google Glass.

~~~
LoganCale
In some regards, so am I, though this comment made me think that in some
regards, Loon is a necessary component of Glass's success. There are huge
areas of even just the U.S. which don't have cell/wireless internet coverage
and Glass would be fairly useless, or significantly less useful, there
currently.

~~~
hnriot
Yes, but do you really think those rural areas are going to want to walk
around lie cyber dorks? The corp I work for has already banned glass on
premises.

~~~
LoganCale
Whether people in rural areas will or not, someone not from a rural area who
does use Glass may want to travel outside of cell coverage areas and keep
using it. Furthermore, far in the future it's fair to presume such devices
would be miniaturized and likely become more acceptable.

------
gabemart
My back-of-the-envelope first-approximation math suggests you'd need "only"
about half a million of these things to cover the entire surface area of the
Earth. To me, that seemed a surprisingly low number.

------
johansch
This could also be used to achieve low-latency network access in passenger
aircraft over the oceans.

------
curiousfiddler
Personal opinion: sometimes Google is just simply awesome.

I really hope every word they've written in there, reflects some of what their
top management feels at a high level.

------
Swannie
Wondering how the routing is working.

If my neighbour and I are 30km apart, and covered by the same balloon, does
our traffic get turned around on the balloon, rather than hoping to the base
station and then back again? I have to assume yes.

If we are 30km apart and we are actually connected to two neighbouring
balloons, will they route traffic between them, and again, not via the base
station? Again, have to assume yes.

So do I get a single IP address, or do I keep changing when the balloons are
overhead? I assume I get a single IP address, but my home router is actually
going to have to do some intelligent next hop routing.

Mesh networking is a challenging area when the base stations are fixed, with
weather effects and moving end users an issue. Even more challenging when your
"base stations" are moving, weather effects are significantly greater, and
you're super limited to the amount of onboard processing you can do.

Assume it has to be something like BATMAN. [http://www.open-
mesh.org/projects/open-mesh/wiki/BATMANConce...](http://www.open-
mesh.org/projects/open-mesh/wiki/BATMANConcept)

------
surrealize
Remember late last year, when there were rumors about Google being in talks to
acquire Dish network?

I couldn't imagine that Google would actually use Dish's spectrum to build a
traditional cellular network. Building all those towers is a huge investment
and I didn't think that played to Google's strengths. But, assuming that Loon
needs licensed spectrum, maybe Loon (or something like it) was the plan?

------
folnop
Well then, wireless internet escalated quickly. In all seriousness tho', this
was unexpected. They said that it will be working with an antenna of sorts
that you attach to your house? Fast forward 10 years and it will be an
integrated wifi replacement in every machine - giving internet to you even in
places where there's no electricity. That's the future I'd give my liver to
see.

------
6d0debc071
I'm not sure they've thought through the effects of creating that many more
consumers and producers to compete with - especially when service industries,
services that can be delivered at range, are becoming so dominant. This seems
like the sort of thing that's going to force down the price of labour again.

I don't see the percentage for developed countries - seems maladaptive.

------
venantius
I find stuff like this awe-inspiring, particularly w/r/t how it could be used
to protect internet access for not only those who are underprivileged but also
for those being denied internet access by autocratic governments. Think back
to Egypt, Libya, Syria - how different could those have gone if the
authorities had been unable to shut down communication networks?

------
zhemao
When you've taken over the internet, what's your next move? Make the internet
bigger of course.

I for one welcome our new Google overlords.

------
Swannie
I wonder if Google are working with the Serval guys in Australia on this. They
are turning Android devices into wireless meshes and have been sending up
balloons with device + high gain aerials for quite a while... With the same
project motives in mind: disaster recovery (with ground and pole based setup,
including voice calls and txt messages with higher QoS over the network), and
extending coverage to less populated parts of the world. Australia is a huge
place. Wireless is the only sane option for large large parts of the country,
and towers, with power - you have to get it there somehow , are expensive. Yes
solar is often an option (though it makes the base station in the middle of
nowhere a very attractive target for thieves) and I'll be very interested to
see how Google will solve that one (assume balloons will be semi covered in
panels plus quite large batteries, and possibly small amounts of wind
generation?).

~~~
Swannie
Doh. Reading the FAQ. Many q's answered.

------
Confusion
I'm curious as to the commercial viability of this. Will Google offer access
for free or will you require a subscription? As a throwaway account mentioned,
Space Data Corp. already offers this kind of service, but to large industrial
companies, that can afford to pay a lot more than people in currently
disconnected regions.

------
kubindurion
What kind of technology are they using to send the signal from the balloons to
the ground? Though there were succesfull attempts to establish succesful WIFI
links from the ground to stratoshpere(even 25 miles as I recall) this was
achieved using precise DIRECT antennas (impossible when balloons are in
constant movement)

???

~~~
kubindurion
Ok:

Project Loon currently uses ISM bands (specifically 2.4 and 5.8 GHz bands)
that are available for anyone to use.

Still doesn't explain how they achieve good quality link

------
drawkbox
Awesome. There are probably alot of things you can do with metrics on usage,
availability, even mapping/weather and some fun camera views and more beyond
just a line in the ground. So many more informational uses with it being
airborne.

------
thehme
I love how google has so much money they can spend money on pet projects like
these. No wonder they attract people with so many "impossible ideas" that
sometimes turn out to be pet projects worth spending come money on.

------
wjruoxue
If this could bring the INTERNET to places like China (where there is only
INTRANET)!

------
vadiml
Awesome idea!!! This will eventually provide alternative to the current
telecom carriers.... In the long run they could provide the service free for
Google Wallet users... They'll make profit on Wallet transaction...

------
neonkiwi
Can anyone involved in this project shed some light on how altitude is
controlled?

------
mtgx
Could servers be put on these, too? Like that drone idea the PirateBay had?

------
noloqy
Next up, Loon servers? I can't wait having my torrents served from the
stratosphere. I believe TPB was already considering having drone-based servers
- balloons just seem so much cheaper.

------
dvfb
So the balloons just float on the air channels 20km up and presumably
circulate around world? I can imagine problems coming up with some countries
objecting to these being over their airspace.

~~~
bvi
So the question, then, is how high do you need to go before you're no longer
in a country's airspace?

~~~
tellarin
As far as I know there is no international agreement on this. Altitude can
vary from 30Km to 160Km.

Most countries seem to claim somewhere between 70Km and 100Km as their
airspace.

If someone has more details on this, it's very welcome.

~~~
wsh
This master's thesis from 2005 ("The Vertical Limit of State Sovereignty") has
a fairly comprehensive account of the history and present state of
international law in this area:

[http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA436627](http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-
bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA436627)

~~~
tellarin
I'm familiar with that. And the guy proposes 22Km as the limit.

Besides, a lot has changed in the use of airspace and space in the last 8
years.

Yet, I don't know of any authoritative source for the actual current claims of
most countries.

------
gulfie
After the communications platform goes up, then the other payloads can hitch a
ride.

Imaging getting real time video from the stratosphere to everywhere all the
time. The weather data alone would be awesome. The traffic data would be
great. The IR imagery catching forest fires or amazon jungle burning would be
great. An almost real time collection for finding illegal logging or toxic
waste dumping.

When there are clouds of these ballons going overhead, who will notice an
extra one or two that happen to have militarized payloads.

------
shruubi
On first reading this, I had to check the date to make sure it wasn't April
Fools because I thought it sounded a little silly... The more I read it
though, the cooler it sounds...

------
marcioaguiar
Plenty of pictures on their G+ page:
[https://plus.google.com/+ProjectLoon](https://plus.google.com/+ProjectLoon)

------
sytelus
There are quite a few technical challenges here (weight of cables, stability
at 20 mi, erosion by much intense radiation etc). Details on one of the
previous efforts which was considered revolutionary but never became main
stream can be seen here:
[http://www.spacedata.net/news040108.htm](http://www.spacedata.net/news040108.htm).

------
soheil
In the first video, yeah having a freakin kid tell you why the world needs to
be connected and explaining concepts that he/she is having problem even
pronouncing does make me﻿ wanna support this lunatic loon project so google
can whore out the rest of the planet with their ads. Can't stop imagining how
useful this will be to the #nsa

------
pinaceae
Wasn't Page about to focus? Shutting down small, useful and used tools because
Google should only do a few thngs, but all of them well?

So will this litter the countryside, and even worse, the oceans with
electronic equipment incl. highly toxic batteries? will they maintain and
retrieve every single one of those balloons? who pays for that?

~~~
Dylan16807
I find it odd that you assume they're going to take these highly advanced
routers and litter with them.

~~~
revx
I share the same concerns - what about the batteries and other products that
aren't as expensive as the routers?

~~~
yohui
(from
[http://www.google.com/loon/faq/#pilot](http://www.google.com/loon/faq/#pilot))

Q: WHAT STEPS IS PROJECT LOON TAKING TO BE ENVIRONMENTALLY RESPONSIBLE?

A: We are taking several steps to ensure Project Loon does not negatively
impact the environment:

\- We’re working to guide all balloons to collection points upon descent, so
we can reuse, recycle, or dispose of the parts responsibly

\- When balloons do not make it to one of these collection points, we will be
offering a reward for reporting the location of the balloon so we can collect
it

\- We can track where the balloons land and we have a team of people who focus
on recovering the balloons

\- We'll have a boat for recovering balloons that go into the sea close to New
Zealand

\- We've started looking into using biodegradable films for our balloon
envelopes

\- Our balloons’ electronics are entirely solar powered.

~~~
mtdewcmu
"Our balloons’ electronics are entirely solar powered." I wonder if that means
there won't be batteries. But no batteries would mean no service at night.
Also, no navigation at night.

Pulling them out of the deep ocean would likely be infeasible. They might be
able to make them float, though, and get them when they wash up on a beach
somewhere.

Edit: there are some answers here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5887330](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5887330)
They do have batteries.

------
erikj
It somehow reminds me of the fictional Aquinas Protocol:

[http://deusex.wikia.com/wiki/Aquinas](http://deusex.wikia.com/wiki/Aquinas)

It gave people free bandwidth in exchange for being a part of a global
survelliance system. I hope Project Loon doesn't have such a dubious second
nature.

------
cpeterso
Any details about bandwidth and latency? Where are the gateway stations out of
the balloon network? In the local region?

------
asafira
Google has mentioned that they had this sort of internet infrastructure in
mind, right? Awesome to see it move forward!

------
droidist2
I've often thought something like this would be good for providing internet
access to the people of North Korea.

~~~
rilut
Until they shot it down ;)

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oellegaard
Although I think this initiative is nothing less than totally awesome, I
wouldn't want Google as my ISP.

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mark_l_watson
Sounds cool, but there is one issue: latency. I remember using the Internet in
the mid-1980s, specifically using servers in Norway and other locations from
my office in San Diego. Because of a few satellite hops, the latency was about
2 seconds. It made remote use of Emacs interesting :-)

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rlamptey
Amazing idea, but then the rest of the world (non-americans) are still worried
about the implications of this for PRISM. Getting the rest of the world online
is cool, but then the NSA gets to have access to their data,that's not cool
and I was beginning to like Google!

------
kunil
Yes, everyone in Africa is waiting for internet to use with their smart
phones.

Evading the censorship is a better idea but I am pretty sure China wouldn't
allow such a thing to fly over their country. Or at least make it suffer with
network attacks or DDOS or something.

------
arahaya
What is "loon" about this? We've been flying stuff outer space for over 50
years.

------
wklauss
Is really that impractical to use stationary WiMax access points instead?

Last time I checked range was around 30 miles, couple of stations will blanket
a good area without the hassle these balloons bring (you need to pick them and
relaunch every couple of weeks, etc...).

~~~
MitziMoto
Some benefits over stationary towers is that you can easily move the balloons
based on different things like natural disasters, political unrest or even to
just improve bandwidth under heavy load.

------
marknutter
"Never mind about the NSA, here's this wacky project for the public good!"

------
snprbob86
How fast will the connections be?

~~~
citricsquid

        Each balloon can provide connectivity to a ground area about 40 km in 
        diameter at speeds comparable to 3G. For balloon-to-balloon and 
        balloon-to-ground communications, the balloons use antennas   
        equipped withspecialized radio frequency technology. Project 
        Loon currently uses ISM bands (specifically 2.4 and 5.8 GHz bands) 
        that are available for anyone to use.
    

From [http://www.google.com/loon/how/](http://www.google.com/loon/how/)

------
tamersalama
With all the PRISM & NSA news coming out, I can't discard that this might be
yet another tool to go after remote 'Jihadists' and people of interest.
Whether Google is doing it wittingly or not is yet to be determined.

------
mkl
I went to the Project Loon event in Christchurch today. Here are details:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5887330](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5887330)

------
Geee
I wouldn't vouch for it until the complete tech stack is open-source, and the
devices are manufactured and deployed by someone else than Google. I expect
them to be shot down eventually if that doesn't happen.

~~~
spuz
What? why? Most networking and routing hardware is proprietary, what's
different about balloons?

~~~
Geee
Well, Google owned global balloon network is just too scary. I guess it
doesn't have to be open-source if there's means to reverse engineer these
things, and be sure that there's no way for Google to gather information or
intercept the traffic.

------
ancarda
Perhaps I'm pessimistic but my immediate thought is how much Google is
involved, i.e are they providing the backbones the balloons connect to? The
last thing I'd want is Google knowing every URL I visit.

------
Trogdor0617
I recall a month or two ago some rumors about Google preparing to launch
airships & blimps to achieve this same purpose.

Now I wonder if that was a misinformation campaign intended to keep
competitors and Wall Street guessing.

------
SunboX
I can see bunches of ballons floating above the planet. If you ask me, google
should support [http://brck.com/](http://brck.com/)

------
gboudrias
How long before they abandon the idea? Google is well known for creating
projects for shits and giggles and abandoning them when it turns out giggles
don't make money.

~~~
psbp
Have the abandoned any of the moonshots?

------
jordiae
This is what makes Google different from the other enterprises.

------
grappler
In light of the whole surveillance issue, how to approach the matter of
foreign balloons drifting in and out of the airspace of many different
countries? Can they steer around countries that want no part of it?

It doesn't take too much imagination to envision balloons doing things like
taking high-res photos and videos, collecting all manner of signals from
communications equipment, radars and other military equipment, or even
carrying onboard weapons. Basically the same things drones do.

How can they assure skeptical people and governments that these balloons
aren't carrying something extra in addition to their statued misson?

------
robbiep
I wonder if they have any plans to move away from helium as a buoyancy gas.. I
can't help but feel we need to save every atom of that stuff for MRI machines

------
vy8vWJlco
It would be great if it didn't take a company project to overcome the fear of
being harassed at 2:30 AM because someone misused my open WiFi.

~~~
jamesaguilar
Why would you be afraid of that? Is it a frequent occurrence where you live?

~~~
vy8vWJlco
[http://news.cnet.com/Wi-Fi-arrest-highlights-security-
danger...](http://news.cnet.com/Wi-Fi-arrest-highlights-security-
dangers/2100-1039_3-5112000.html)

------
Iterated
I suppose Google will be hiring a lot of meteorologists! This would be a very
fun project to work on.

------
nateguchi
This reminds me of the "swivel eyed loons" of last weeks episode of The Now
Show

------
greghinch
It's a really cool idea.

But given Google's history of late, I wonder how long it will last?

------
mrtron
We are living in the future.

------
Nimi
A worthy project, to be sure, but the networking guy in me hears "space" and
immediately starts worrying about the latency. Does anyone know if there's
technical data available on the standard network metrics of this solution
(latency, packet loss, jitter...)?

------
lyime
_Mind Blown_ again.

------
mrschwabe
Will these balloons also be feeding data to the NSA via PRISM?

~~~
krapp
No need. Why climb in through the window when you have the keys to the back
door?

------
vadiml
I wonder, how project team member call themselves .... :)

------
coherentpony
I'll be honest, I _did_ double-check the date...

------
guiomie
I wonder how cheaper it is to conventional landlines ?

------
shire
Mind boggling!

------
Cardeck1
I like innovation but Google is getting too powerful and I don't want to see
an Umbrella Corporation in the next 20 years.

------
_progger_
"But two-thirds of the world’s population does not yet have Internet access."

Those two-thirds can't see Google Ads then :).

------
adrianbg
Has no one noticed that this is a super-governmental network? Like, including
the US government and its NSA?

------
hkon
I can't help but thinking, bring internet to everyone, so we can spy on
everyone.

------
fowkswe
Yeeeeeahhhh buddy

------
achalkley
All your data are belong to us. PRISM 2.0.

