Maria Recovery Progress Continues; Hurricane Nate DIRS Shut Down

Wireless service slowly is being re-established in Puerto Rico, with 78.9 percent of cellsites down Tuesday, compared with 81.1 percent the day before, the FCC said in Tuesday's Hurricane Maria update. It said 18 of the island's 78 counties have no cellsites up, vs. 23 counties. It said satellite cells on light trucks and terrestrial cells on wheels have been deployed. In the U.S. Virgin Islands, 60.3 percent of cellsites are out, same as Monday, including 100 percent of cellsites in St. John. The FCC said two Puerto Rico TV stations and nine radio stations are off the air. The FCC said both public service answering points in Puerto Rico are operational as of Tuesday, as are the 911 call centers in St. Croix and St. Thomas, with location information for wireless callers and VoiP callers intermittently available. Meanwhile, Hurricane Nate had "virtually no effect on communications" during the storm or afterward, with no TV or radio stations knocked out of service and one cellsite out in Alabama, the agency said in its update Monday. It deactivated its disaster information reporting system for Nate at the request of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The FCC said it granted an experimental license for Project Loon, led by Google parent Alphabet, to help provide emergency wireless service in Puerto Rico. The project provides coverage through a network of balloons. Loon has consent agreements to use land mobile radio spectrum in the 900 MHz band from carriers in the commonwealth, the FCC said Saturday. “More than two weeks after Hurricane Maria struck, millions of Puerto Ricans are still without access to much-needed communications services,” Chairman Ajit Pai said in a statement. “We need to take innovative approaches to help restore connectivity.”