Google to bring Project Ara devices to Puerto Rico first

  • Thread starter Thread starter Valerie Richardson
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Valerie Richardson

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At the second Project Ara Developer Conference, Google has announced that Puerto Rico will be one of the regions to get a ‘market pilot’ of the device. This essentially means that Puerto Rico will be the first region to get Project Ara based handsets.

Google mentions that this decision was taken considering the country’s reliance on mobile networks. Since it is part of a mobile-first ecosystem, it’s feasible to try out something like Project Ara over at Puerto Rico.

Google mentions that test devices should be available sometime in Q2 2015, so there’s still some waiting to do. By then, Project Ara will reach functional status, so the timing of the launch has been scheduled based on that.



Paul Eremenko of Google’s Advanced Technology and Projects (ATAP) group stated the reasons for choosing Puerto Rico as one of the first launch markets – “First, Puerto Rico has an incredibly diverse mobile user base, that ranges all the way from a large number of feature phone users all the way up to premium smartphone users. We need to be able to reach both with the Ara platform, and so we should have both included in the market pilot. As it happens, the ratio in Puerto Rico is about 50/50 between feature phone users and smartphone users.”



Google further mentions that since Puerto Rico is a free trade zone, it would make it easier for manufacturers to send components from around the globe. Also, since Puerto Rico is technically under FCC’s jurisdiction, it will act as a decent test market for the subsequent American launch of Project Ara based devices.


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