Project Loon: Google’s biggest obstacle isn’t technology. It’s politics

The balloon-powered network know as Loon may be one of Google’s famed moon shots, but the biggest issues facing the project are grounded right here on Earth.

This won’t just be a major technological feat for Google. It will be a huge political undertaking. If Loon is going to be a success it’s going to have to wade deeply into the morass of global international relations. Google wants to build a network that knows no borders. Not only does Google want to implement it in every country with an underserved internet population, but the network itself will be stateless, coasting from continent to continent. Google will have some control over where these balloons go by navigating the wind currents, but as Google shows in its Loon videos, its eventual plan is to set them loose in the sky, letting them follow the west-east stratospheric winds around the world. Since Loon will use radios, it will have to use spectrum, which is tightly regulated by the world’s governments. It can’t just use any old spectrum either. It will have to convince hundreds of different regulators to agree on a unified band or ride over an existing one.