Google Project Loon uses high-altitude solar-powered balloons instead of the usual land-based cell towers to provide your phone's wireless connection to the network. Google has tested it in Peru and expects to launch it as a real business.

"We believe in the next couple year we will be flying in a commercial context," said Loon chief Alastair Westgarth in an interview with Mobile World Live. The plan is to be profitable, not one of Alphabet's many other projects reliant on funding supplied by Google's immense online advertising business. "We intend for it to be a profitable business and a large business," Westgarth said.

In the Peru test this year, the Loon team partnered with carrier Telefonica to supply net access. Using 20 to 30 balloons, the Loon project covered an area the size of Switzerland to help improve net access during Peru flooding, Westgarth said.