Project Loon granted license by FCC to restore cellular coverage to hurricane-affected Puerto Rico

Briefing

Project Loon granted license by FCC to restore cellular coverage to hurricane-affected Puerto Rico

October 9, 2017

Briefing

  • FCC Deployment Approval – U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) granted Google license to send Project Loon balloons to Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands, providing emergency LTE cellular coverage to areas affected by Hurricane Maria
  • Telecom Partnership – Working with telecom companies AT&T and T-Mobile which will provide network necessary to deliver signal to people’s devices
  • How It Works – Balloon network floating at altitude of 65,000 feet receive signals from telecom network on ground, which then gets sent to cellphone users
  • Puerto Rico’s Need – More than 75% of cellphone towers in Puerto Rico remain offline, with power yet to be restored to almost 90% of island
  • Previous Loon Project – Worked with telecom partner Telefonica to provide Internet connectivity to tens of thousands of people in Lima, Chimbote, and Piura floodzones in Peru on May 2017

Accelerator

Sector

Information Technology, Telecommunications

Organization

AT&T Inc., Alphabet Inc., Google Inc., T-Mobile, Telefónica SA

Source

Original Publication Date

October 8, 2017

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