Google’s Loon failure raised an awkward question FILE PHOTO: A Google Project Loon internet balloon is seen at the Google I/O 2016 developers conference in Mountain View, California. (REUTERS)Premium . Updated: 07 Feb 2021, 07:13 PM IST Bloomberg More than three billion people live in areas with mobile broadband but don’t use the internet. Why? Share Via Read Full Story A decade ago, less than a third of the people in developing regions had access to fast mobile internet connections. This “coverage gap," as it came to be known, was a worrisome phenomenon, especially to governments keen to compete in the knowledge economy and tech companies eager to profit from it. So in 2013, Alphabet Inc.’s Google announced Loon, a “moonshot" project to provide internet to rural and remote regions using high-altitude balloons.