Internet for the Remote: Alphabet’s Laser Solution

Check out the information about Alphabet's Laser solution internet for remote areas

Alphabet, the parent company of Google, has tried unsuccessfully to bring internet service to remote and rural places via high-altitude balloons in the stratosphere. However, the company uses light beams to provide internet service to remote areas.

Alphabet's innovation lab, X, or the "moonshot factory," includes Project Taara. It was started in 2016 after, according to company executives, high costs made it difficult to use stratospheric balloons to provide internet access. Mahesh Krishnaswamy, the head of Taara, claims that things are going better this time.

Officials from Taara and Bharti Airtel, one of India's biggest internet and telecoms service providers, have disclosed that they are preparing to roll out the brand-new laser internet technology on a broader scale. Financial details weren't disclosed.

To link internet services in 13 nations thus far, Taara, according to Krishnaswamy, has negotiated partnerships with the Econet Group and its subsidiary Liquid Telecom in Africa, internet service provider Bluetown in India, and Digicel in the Pacific Islands.

In the words of Krishnaswamy, "We are trying to be one of the most affordable places where you would be able to get dollars per gigabyte to the end consumers."

Taara's machine, which beams the laser that carries the data and is the size of traffic lights, is like fiber-optic internet without cables. The machines are utilized by partners like Airtel to construct communications infrastructure in difficult-to-reach locations.

When Krishnaswamy was working on the failed balloon internet project Loon, which used lasers to connect data between balloons and bring that technology to market, he said he had an epiphany. Astro Teller, who is in charge of X and is referred to as the "captain of moonshots," stated, "We call this moonshot composting."

Alphabet's research division, X, takes on science fiction-themed projects. Waymo, a self-driving technology company, Wing, a drone delivery service; and Verily Life Sciences, a health technology startup, emerged from it. Astro Teller stated, "Taara is moving more data daily than Loon did in its entire history."

According to Randeep Sekhon, chief technology officer of Bharti Airtel, Taara will help give speedier internet service in metropolitan regions of industrialized countries. He claimed that beaming data between buildings is less costly than laying fiber-optic connections. He declared, "I think this is disruptive."

Krishnaswamy recently installed Taara equipment in Osur, an Indian village three hours south of Chennai, where he spent his childhood summers. He stated that Osur will receive high-speed internet for the first time this summer.

He stated, "There are hundreds of thousands of these villages all over India." I can't wait to see how this technology will help connect all those people.

In July 2020, Google pledged US$10 billion to digitize India. Last year, it invested US$700 million and bought a 1.28 percent stake in Bharti Airtel. Alphabet owns both X and Google, but Taara's partnership with Bharti Airtel differs from Google's investment.

Teller responded to a question about the drawbacks of the internet as X and Taara continue their endeavor to connect the rest of the world, " Although I acknowledge that the internet is not perfect, I would suggest that improving its content might be the focus of a different moonshot."