Google's Project Loon delivers internet to 100,000 in Puerto Rico

Google's parent Alphabet has delivered internet services to 100,000 Puerto Ricans who have been hit by the Hurricane Maria. This internet service is a part of Alphabet Inc's Project Loon, where it is providing internet services to people with the help of helium balloons at disaster-hit locations. The company partnered with AT&T and T-Mobile to transmit internet on the island.

'We've never deployed Project Loon connectivity from scratch at such a rapid pace, and we're grateful for the support of AT&T and the many other partners and organizations that have made this possible,' Project Loon head Alastair Westgarth said.

'This is the first time we have used our new machine learning powered algorithms to keep balloons clustered over Puerto Rico, so we're still learning how best to do this.

Project Loon is meant to bring services to locations which are rural and remote, basically where there is no internet communication. It uses high altitude balloons which sail for around 20 kilometres. These balloons have solar-powered electronic devices and are "superpressured, allowing them to last much longer."

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