Bharti Airtel and Alphabet Inc. have announced a collaboration to deliver the new laser-based high-speed internet technology in remote villages in India.
Alphabet has been delivering internet service to remote areas by using beams of light. The project known as Taara is part of Alphabet’s innovation lab called X, also named the “Moonshot Factory.” It was initiated in 2016 after attempts at using stratospheric balloons to deliver internet. Taara is helping to link up internet services in 13 countries so far including Australia, Kenya and Fiji. The company has struck deals with Econet Group and its subsidiary Liquid Telecom in Africa, internet provider Bluetown in India and Digicel in the Pacific Islands.
Taara’s machine is the size of traffic lights that beam the laser carrying the data, essentially fibre-optic internet without the cables. Partners such as Airtel use the machines to build out communications infrastructure in hard-to-reach places.
According to Airtel, Taara will also help deliver faster internet service in urban areas in developed countries. The telco added that it is less expensive to beam data between buildings than to bury fibre-optic cables.
