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Alphabet, Google’s parent company, sent broadband across the Congo River to Africa via airborne beams of light, in its latest attempt to provide high-speed internet access to underserved communities.
As part of an initiative called Project Taara, Alphabet transmits data between the cities of Brazzaville (in the Republic of the Congo) and Kinshasa (in the Democratic Republic of the Congo), on both sides of the Congo River.
Google said it has closed “a particularly stubborn connectivity gap” between the two cities, which are only about 3 miles apart.
However, connectivity is five times more expensive in Kinshasa as the fiber connection has to travel over 250 miles to bypass the Congo River, the deepest and second fastest river in the world.
Project Taara managed to deliver a total of almost 700TB of data – the equivalent of watching a FIFA World Cup match in HD 270,000 times – in 20 days with 99.9% uptime, a- he declared.
Residents of Kinshasa have experienced speeds of around 20 Gbps, which is “a much better option” than missing out on the benefits of connectivity, the researchers said.
Project Taara uses terminals that emit very narrow and invisible beams of light. These are picked up by other terminals which lock “like a handshake”
Brazzaville and Kinshasa are two cities in different countries of Africa, on either side of the Congo River
The Taara project is orchestrated by X, formerly Google X – the secret research and development arm of Alphabet.
Baris Erkmen, engineering director for Taara, described the project in a blog post.
Being able to provide high-speed Internet up to 20 gigabits per second (Gbps) is “a much better option” than the millions of people who do not enjoy the benefits of connectivity because the economy of laying cables in their homes. the soil “is just not enough. stack up, â€he said.
“The Taara project’s wireless optical communication links now deliver light-speed connectivity from Brazzaville to Kinshasa across the Congo River,†Erkmen said.
“While we don’t expect to see perfect reliability in all kinds of weather and conditions in the future, we are confident that Taara’s links will continue to provide similar performance and play a key role in bringing connectivity. faster and more affordable to the 17 million people living in these cities.
The Taara project works in a similar way to traditional optical fiber, which uses light to carry data through cables in the ground.
With fiber, the data that makes it possible to establish an Internet connection travels the cables at the speed of light.
Taara’s wireless optical communications links, on the other hand, use very narrow and invisible beams of light, emitted from special terminals in the air above the ground, to provide speeds similar to those of fiber.
Taara’s terminals detect the beam of light coming from each other and lock together “like a handshake,” Erkmen said, to create a high-bandwidth connection.
In some parts of the world, low visibility caused by elements such as fog and haze would hamper the process, but Brazzaville and Kinshasa have ideal weather conditions for most of the year.
During the Taara project pilots in India, Team X was confronted with the problem of monkeys jostling the Taara terminals.
Erkmen said X has since had to adapt Taara’s capabilities to avoid downtime during such “bumpy realities of operating technology in the physical world.”
The overall mission of the Taara project is to bring speeds similar to those of fiber to unconnected and underserved communities.
“Better tracking accuracy, automated environmental responses and better planning tools are helping Taara’s links deliver reliable high-speed bandwidth to places fiber cannot reach, and helping us connect communities that are cut. traditional means of providing connectivity, â€Erkmen said.
The Congo River (pictured here from the Brazzaville side in the Republic of Congo) is the deepest and second fastest river in the world
Visibility requirements for worldwide optical wireless communications (WOC) performance. Visibility is generally good in the Republic of the Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo
“We are truly excited about these advancements and look forward to building on them as we continue to develop and refine Taara’s capabilities. ”
Project Taara is the continuation of his Internet balloon business Project Loon, which closed earlier this year.
Project Loon used tennis court-sized balloons that carried solar-powered networking gear above the Earth and broadcast Internet access to the ground.
But the project was no longer commercially viable, the CEO of Alphabet said.
In his story, Loon made headlines for his balloons raining down on homes and residences, in places like the United States and Sri Lanka, and even the Amazon rainforest.
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