Big Four Carriers Now Working to Restore Connectivity in Puerto Rico

In the last 24 hours or so, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approve several Special Temporary Authority (STA) applications from various mobile operators who want to immediately push through with efforts to restore wireless connection services in Puerto Rico. As of now, the country is still without much power or mobile connectivity about three weeks since Hurricane Maria had hit.

There were a total of fifteen STAs approved for Puerto Rico in the last couple of days alone, with another four issued to California. Last Thursday, eight STA applications were granted approval, and among them was an STA for allowing short term spectrum management to be initiated by major US mobile operator Verizon Wireless in collaboration with Puerto Rico Wireless. There were other STAs approved for efforts to help bring back mobile communications in Puerto Rico for two other national carriers, AT&T and Sprint, and another for PR Wireless. Earlier this week, Neville Ray, the chief technical officer of T-Mobile, had posted on social media that no less than 50 new volunteers from across America have set foot in Puerto Rico, in order to set up teams to help re-establish connectivity in the country.

As indicated on the FCC’s latest update regarding the situation in Puerto Rico, the Big Four carriers in the United States (namely Verizon Wireless, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint) have opened up roaming in Puerto Rico so that they can provide the nation’s inhabitants with whatever mobile coverage is available. 

According to the FCC, a top priority for the mobile operators is to immediately start the recovery of cellular sites and deployment of temporary assets with the other wireless service providers in order to broaden coverage for all Puerto Rican users. So far, satellite cells on light trucks (COLTs) as well as terrestrial cells on wheels (COWs -- also used in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey) have been rolled out. The latest updates reveal that around 60 percent (which is an improvement over the 54 percent estimated the day before) of the Puerto Rican population is being covered by the country’s mobile operators.

Earlier this week, the FCC has also approved an experimental license for an unorthodox solution to restoring connectivity in Puerto Rico. Having already granted its STA, Google’s Project Loon is now working to coordinate with a carrier partner in order to deploy cellular service in the country. Even social media giant Facebook is joining in the effort -- it recently sent its own team to Puerto Rico in order to coordinate with nonprofit organization NetHope in re-establishing online connectivity.