Alphabet’s Project Loon To Deliver Emergency LTE To Puerto Rico

The Federal Communications Commission yesterday granted Alphabet-owned Project Loon an experimental license. They can now operate in Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands to help the islands regain connectivity. The license extends from October 6 until April 4, 2018, and it was granted to Ben Wojtowicz, a software engineer and member of Alphabet’s X lab who works on Project Loon.

The helium balloons are expected to deliver emergency LTE cellular reception. This will allow residents and local governments to contact friends and family, coordinate relief and restoration efforts, and reestablish communication with the outside world. It’s unclear to what extent Loon will cover Puerto Rico or parts of the Virgin Islands, or how many balloons the team plans to deploy.

“The purpose of the [Special Temporary Authority] is to support licensed mobile carriers’ restoration of limited communications capability in areas of Puerto Rico and the United States Virgin Islands affected by Hurricanes Irma and Maria,” the license read.

Hurricane Maria

The island, home to nearly 3.5 million people, remains crippled.

Just last week, the Loon team said it was looking into helping Puerto Rico, still devastated by Hurricane Maria, regain connectivity. The island, home to nearly 3.5 million people, remains crippled by the Category 4 storm that struck last month. It disabled more than 90% of Puerto Rico’s cell towers and left its communications infrastructure in shambles. In a report issued yesterday, the FCC revealed that 83% of cell towers on the island are still down. The US Virgin Islands are in a similar state.

Loon is one of Google’s original moonshot efforts designed to bring connectivity to remote areas of the world and locales struggling in the aftermath of natural disaster. It appears to be a perfect fit for helping Puerto Rico get back online. Helping speed up the process is the Loon team’s existing involvement with telecommunications provider Telefonica on the island.

To make it all work, Alphabet’s X lab needs to work with a partner network of a local telecom – like Telefonica. According to a statement given to Engadget by a spokesperson for the team.

“To deliver signal to people’s devices, Loon needs be integrated with a telco partner’s network — the balloons can’t do it alone,” the spokesperson explained.

“We’ve been making solid progress on this next step and would like to thank everyone who’s been lending a hand.” This isn’t Loon’s first deployment. The team has been expanded its testing over the years to include initiatives in Brazil, France, Indonesia, New Zealand, and Sri Lanka, among others.