X, Google holding company Alphabet Inc's self-proclaimed moonshot factory, has been providing wireless Internet access to tens of thousands of "Coastal El Niño" phenomenon disaster victims in Peru through its ground-breaking Project Loon.
In emergency situations, the ability to communicate with loved ones and access basic information becomes paramount —yet communications infrastructure on the ground is often one of the first things to be knocked out by natural disasters like floods and landslides.
Precisely,
X's Project Loon is a network of balloons traveling on the edge of space, designed to extend Internet connectivity to people in rural and remote areas worldwide, the venture affirms in its website.
Loon balloons float 20 km up in the stratosphere and so have the potential to extend connectivity to where it is needed regardless of what's happening below.
"We've been flying balloons over Latin America and running connectivity tests with our telecommunications partner Telefonica in Peru for the last few months," Project Loon Head Alastair Westgarth affirmed via X Moonshot Factory's blog.
"So when we saw what was happening, we reached out to Telefonica and the government to see how we could help," he added.
Over the past seven weeks, Project Loon and Telefonica have been working together to provide basic Internet connectivity to tens of thousands of people who would otherwise not have had connectivity in flood-stricken areas around Lima, Chimbote and Piura.
"More than 160 GB of data has been sent to people over a combined area of 40,000km2 —that's roughly the size of Switzerland— and enough data to send and receive around 30 million WhatsApp messages, or 2 million emails," Westgarth reveals.
This way, the Inca nation became the scenario of the first balloon Internet delivery to tens of thousands of people.
"Our tests in previous months focused on integrating our technology into Telefonica's network; prior to these last few weeks, we'd never done a wide scale trial directly to people's phones," Westgarth's article continues.
In this sense, the Project Loon representative highlighted the role of the Peruvian Government in the initiative.
"Thanks to the Peruvian and neighboring governments, aviation authorities and air traffic controllers, we already had permission to fly and land our balloons in the region," he explains.
To conclude, the project leader announced Project Loon would continue to deliver balloon-powered internet in Peru "for as long as it's needed."