From Brian Potter’s Construction Physics newsletter I learned about Taara, framed as “Google’s answer to Starlink” re: remote internet access, using ground-based optical communication instead of satellites (“fiber optics without the fibers”; Taara calls them “light bridges”). I found this surprising. Even more surprisingly, Taara isn’t just a pilot but a moneymaking endeavor if this Wired passage is true:
Taara is now a commercial operation, working in more than a dozen countries. One of its successes came in crossing the Congo River. On one side was Brazzaville, which had a direct fiber connection. On the other, Kinshasa, where internet used to cost five times more. A Taara light bridge spanning the 5-kilometer waterway provided Kinshasha with nearly equally cheap internet. Taara was also used at the 2024 Coachella music festival, augmenting what would have been an overwhelmed cellular network. Google itself is using a light bridge to provide high-speed bandwidth to a building on its new Bayview campus where it would have been difficult to extend a fiber cable.
How does Taara make it work? Wired again:
Instead of beaming from space, Taara’s “light bridges”—which are about the size of a traffic light—are earthbound. As X’s “captain of moonshots” Astro Teller puts it, “As long as these two boxes can see each other, you get 20 gigabits per second, the equivalent of a fiber-optic cable, without having to trench the fiber-optic cable.” Light bridges have complicated gimbals, mirrors, and lenses to zero in on the right spot to establish and hold the connection. The team has figured out how to compensate for potential line-of-sight interruptions like bird flights, rain, and wind. (Fog is the biggest impediment.) Once the high-speed transmission is completed from light bridge to light bridge, providers still have to use traditional means to get the bits from the bridge to the phone or computer.
Taara’s light bridges look like this:
A bit more on the commercial aspect, from their website:
Since launching Taara in 2017, the team has deployed hundreds of links in more than a dozen countries. Some of Taara’s partners include T-Mobile in the U.S. providing backhaul for big events; Airtel in India in urban areas where fiber can’t be deployed; and Liquid Intelligent Technologies in Africa, which has rolled out Taara’s wireless optical links to more than 50 communities in seven African countries, to serve tens of thousands people. The team has also provided disaster response services in the Pacific and The Caribbean.
From Brian Potter’s Construction Physics newsletter I learned about Taara, framed as “Google’s answer to Starlink” re: remote internet access, using ground-based optical communication instead of satellites (“fiber optics without the fibers”; Taara calls them “light bridges”). I found this surprising. Even more surprisingly, Taara isn’t just a pilot but a moneymaking endeavor if this Wired passage is true:
How does Taara make it work? Wired again:
Taara’s light bridges look like this:
A bit more on the commercial aspect, from their website: