Telefonica and O3b Networks have separately announced collaborations with Google’s Project Loon in Peru to reconnect communities recovering from recent floods. In March and April the El Nino weather phenomenon deluged parts of Peru with nearly 10 times the typical rainfall, causing widespread flooding and heavy damage to telecommunications infrastructure. Project Loon, with its balloon-based internet network, was in an ideal position to provide much needed support, with the company reaching out to the government to offer its innovative solution when the ground infrastructure began to be impacted by the flooding.
Telefonica and Project Loon provided basic internet connectivity to tens of thousands of people over a 40,000 square kilometre area. In less than 72 hours, Project Loon’s balloons, which fly at a height of 20 km, started to provide mobile internet connectivity to tens of thousands of people in the most affected areas in the centre and northwest of the country, the highlands of Lima, Chimbote and Piura.
The Project Loon team also used O3b’s satellite network to join in restoring connectivity to Peruvians affected by the flooding. The combination of the Project Loon targeted cell coverage and O3b’s FastConnect satellite terminal helped to rapidly provide communications infrastructure to those in the impacted regions.
