X investigating possibility of delivering Loon internet to Puerto Rico
After the hurricanes in Puerto Rico, X’s Project Loon may be able to restore connectivity.
Alphabet’s “X,” the moonshot project company, tweeted today that they are investigating whether their Project Loon networking system could help with Puerto Rico’s crisis. After hurricanes Irma and Maria, Puerto Rico experienced near total loss of power and communication. The aging power and communications infrastructure was destroyed by these hurricanes, leaving many with no way to communicate with the outside world whatsoever.
The lack of communication infrastructure has been making the recovery effort difficult, however Project Loon, by X, may be the perfect solution. Loon provides internet access by using balloons equipped with wireless communication hardware. These balloons form a mesh network, requiring only one to have a direct connection to the Internet for all to have a connection.
Loon balloons communicate with end users’ devices using LTE, the same technology used by many cell towers. This means that users won’t need a new device to take advantage of Loon, which is perfect for the Puerto Rican disaster: getting proprietary hardware to millions of people in a devastated island would be near-impossible.
