(A Project Loon balloon launching in Nevada, en route to Puerto Rico. PHOTO CREDIT: Project Loon.)
It has been nearly two months since Hurricane Maria touched down and caused massive devastation in Puerto Rico, and still a significant portion of the island's population is without electricity or access to working phones. And while recovery efforts in Puerto Rico will stretch on for months, if not years, more than 100,000 citizens gained internet access last week, thanks to Alphabet X's Project Loon.
According to its website,
Project Loon is a "network of balloons traveling on the edge of space, designed to extend Internet connectivity to people in remote and rural areas worldwide." The project was granted an experimental license from the FCC last month to attempt to help Puerto Rico get back online, and it announced late last week that, with the help of AT&T and T-Mobile, Project Loon was able to deliver basic internet services to more than 100,000 on the island.
The balloons were launched from Nevada and directed to Puerto Rico using machine learning. Once in place, the balloons are able to relay internet from working ground networks to people in
unconnected areas. The balloons are designed to hover 11 miles above the Earth's surface, and each one can cover to up
5,000 square kilometers.
“In times of crisis, being able to communicate with loved ones, emergency services and critical information is key,” Alastair Westgarth, project lead at Project Loon,
said in a statement. “We hope that the connectivity Project Loon has provided over the last few weeks has been helpful, and would like to thank AT&T, T-Mobile and our government partners who made these efforts possible.”