Google, in addition to having one of the best Internet search engines, throughout these years has developed several initiatives to offer Internet through its parent company Alphabet. Among the most prominent are Google Fiber and Project Loon, projects that have focused on the possibility of offering the Internet through cables, waves even through stratospheric helium balloons. However, now the latest news comes from Project Taara.
In January of this year, Google decided to conclude Project Loon, an initiative that has been exploring the possibility of distributing wireless Internet using stratospheric helium balloons, something like an attempt to use solar-powered drones. However, some of the technology developed in this project has continued to evolve, specifically the Free Space Optical Communications (FSOC) links. Initially this technology was used to connect high-flying balloons, but is now being used to provide high-speed broadband for people in Africa.
Internet through laser beams
The objective of Project Taara is to bring the Internet to complicated areas of our planet through laser beams. This project started by establishing links in India a few years ago and has also piloted in Kenya.
Google X today revealed that it has succeeded in having its wireless optical link connect service across the Congo River from Brazaaville in the Republic of the Congo to Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This has been thanks to the fact that a type of fiber optic cables called wireless (FSOC) are capable of creating a broadband link of more than 20 Gbps from two points that have a clear line of sight.
Baris Erkmen, leader of the Taara Project, assures that the link transmitted almost 700 TB of data over 20 days, an aspect that represented an increase in the fiber connections used by its local telecommunications partner Econet and subsidiaries.
Africa as the setting
One of the main reasons why the Taara Project is in the testing phase of its technology (FSOC) in Africa is not only conditioned by the climate of this continent, but also by the inconveniences that a river of considerable depth and fast flow when the connection is successful.
The Taara Project team ensures that end users do not know when their communications are using technology through laser beams and when physical fiber. Taara’s connection is resistant to fog, light rain, birds, and other obstacles that can interfere with laser power.
The Project Taara links are placed at a considerable height so that they can have visual contact with each other. These links are capable of automatically adjusting their mirrors to connect a “toothpick-width beam of light with enough precision to hit a 5-centimeter target 10 kilometers away.”