In 2017, through the application of laser technologyFSOC (Free Space Opical Communications) project, making it easier for the 16 square kilometers of Andhra Pradesh, India to access Internet resources. Recently, Alphabet has also used the same technology toTaara ProjectIt enables Kenya in Africa to access Internet services at a faster speed, and also cooperates with Liquid Telecom, a telecommunications service under the African Econet Group, to provide convenient high-speed Internet connection resources to sub-Saharan regions.
The Taara project also uses high-power, narrow-wavelength lasers as the backbone of its network, which can achieve a transmission distance of up to 20 kilometers and provide network bandwidth exceeding 20Gbps, allowing thousands of users to smoothly watch YouTube videos.
Similar to the FSOC project previously implemented in India, the Taara project leverages laser technology to address the high installation costs and difficult maintenance challenges of traditional wired networks. While elevated installation is also required to prevent laser beam obstruction, the number of elevated nodes is relatively small compared to traditional wired networks. Operation requires only ensuring that the laser transmitter and receiver are properly connected, unlike wired networks where errors require time-consuming line inspections.
In addition, using laser light as the network transmission medium has the advantages of being easy and quick to build and more easily traversing geographical restrictions. This makes the Taara project more suitable for use in areas such as India and Africa where Internet services are difficult to build.
Taara's idea of using lasers as a network backbone actually originated from the technology used by the connected hot air balloon company Loon. It is mainly used to connect the network resources of each group of hot air balloons to confirm that the connection between the hot air balloons is correct. At the same time, it can also cooperate with artificial intelligence computing methods to ensure that each hot air balloon maintains the optimal spacing and maintains the best network resources.
