WCA January 2018

From the Americas

 In conclusion, Ms Marsh acknowledged that Hurricane Maria created restoration challenges unlike those AT&T has encountered with other storms. In the aftermath, she wrote: “there will be lessons for all of us to learn on restoration and recovery.” Solar-powered balloons fitted with communications gear come to the aid of closed-off Puerto Rico Writing in New Atlas on 9 th October, when Puerto Rico was still reeling from the devastation of Hurricanes Irma and Maria, the Australia-based journalist Nick Lavars described Project Loon – an audacious concept “dreamt up in Google’s secretive X lab” to connect remote regions of the world through high-flying communications balloons. With some 83 per cent of Puerto Rico still without cell service, the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) had granted Google’s parent company, Alphabet, an experimental licence to put its balloons in the air over the island. As detailed by Mr Lavars, the idea behind Project Loon is to use a fleet of solar-powered balloons fitted with communications gear to form networks in the stratosphere, where they provide connectivity to those on the ground below. (“Project Loon Balloons to Connect Storm-Ravaged Puerto Rico,” 9 th October) It was noted that disaster relief is still relatively new territory for Project Loon, though it did have success using its stratospheric balloons in Peru in March 2017. With communications infrastructure on the ground knocked out by extreme rain and flooding, Project Loon teamed up with local carrier Telefonica to provide Internet connections to tens of thousands of Peruvians across an area about the size of Switzerland. In Puerto Rico, Project Loon would again team up with local mobile carriers, working with them to restore communications both there and in the nearby US Virgin Islands. Its FCC licence authorises it to operate through to April of this year.  Alphabet (Mountain View, California) has also tested its balloons in New Zealand and Brazil, and the company has agreements with Sri Lanka and Indonesia to one day deploy them over those countries, as well. Work losses stemming from the hurricanes shatter an 84-consecutive- month record of job growth in the United States Employers in the USA cut 33,000 jobs in September 2017, bringing to an end a nearly seven-year streak of employment growth. While acknowledging the difficulty of isolating weather-related effects from other forces, the New York Times stated the obvious: that Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, which ravaged Texas and Florida, wreaked havoc on employment. (The coverage excluded Puerto Rico, devastated by Hurricane Maria.)

Rico expected to be out of service for months in the wake of Hurricane Maria, she took note of the “unprecedented” telecom infrastructure damage in that USA territory. According to Federal Communications Commission (FCC) data, fully 90.3 per cent of cell sites in Puerto Rico were out of service on that date, down only slightly from 91.1 per cent a day earlier. As to landlines, the FCC said that at least 14 switches were out of service and that one company reported 100 per cent of its customers without service due to a lack of commercial power. In many areas, the fibre backhaul was simply gone. Telecompetitor cited a corporate blog post by Joan Marsh, the executive vice president of regulatory and state external affairs for AT&T, disclosing that the provider expected unique difficulties to retard its restoration of wireless service to the island. Because “managing expectations in times like these can be critical for businesses,” Ms Engebretson suggested that the AT&T executive’s comments warrant consideration. Ms Marsh provided an account of Hurricane Maria’s impact in Puerto Rico and the USA Virgin Islands vis-à-vis AT&T’s restoration experiences in continental USA (mainly Texas and Florida) after Hurricanes Harvey and Irma hit parts of several states weeks earlier. (“AT&T Hurricane Response: Carrier Compares and Contrasts, Harvey, Irma, Maria,” 29 th September) “Hurricane Harvey was all about water, and its communications recovery story is all about fibre,” Ms Marsh wrote. AT&T infrastructure in impacted areas was largely fibre-based, which simplified recovery efforts because fibre is indifferent to water: when it dries out it returns to service. Additionally, although Harvey-related water penetration did cripple some of its wireline facilities, AT&T lost service to less than three per cent of its cell sites during that storm. “The story of Hurricane Irma was one of a hardened electric grid and strategic placement of recovery assets,” Ms Marsh continued. Anticipating the storm, AT&T staged more than 2,400 portable generators and used 390,000 gallons of fuel to keep cell sites up during power outages. In general, those outages ended within a week because the Florida electric grid recovered quickly.  It was another story in Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands – in large part because these are islands. “Although we were able to pre-stage fuel, we could not pre-stage recovery assets for fear they would be lost,” Ms Marsh wrote, indicating the “huge challenge” of getting recovery assets to islands. Particularly in Puerto Rico, given the damage to its airports, it was moreover necessary to give priority to life-sustaining supplies of food, water and fuel. Getting satellite/cell trucks to Puerto Rico was especially daunting because transport by air would require very large planes, in short supply at the time. Ms Marsh noted, though, that AT&T had three satellite trucks on a barge due in Havana in the first week of October, with three more on the way. She added that the company sent 50 satellite phones for use by the Puerto Rican government in areas where there was no cell service.

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Wire & Cable ASIA – January/February 2018