Imagine you are in a country where internet networks are not particularly developed, and having to create a fiber-optic network with cables that must necessarily cross difficult areas, like a great river in flood.
This is precisely the context in which the company Alphabet, the one owned by Google and which deals with the most experimental projects of BigG, is developing its Project Taara. Probably inspired by Finnish mythology, where Taara was the god of thunder, the methodology involves the transmission of data with the exclusive use of beams of light.
Project Taara live is developing in Africa, where the first equipment has been installed to test the methodology developed by the Alphabet team working on the project. In 20 days approximately 700 TB of data was transmitted across the Congo River from Brazzaville to Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
This location takes on both symbolic and practical value: traditional network providers encounter particular difficulties in installing networks with cables across the river, with a consequent increase in internet access prices.
The communication between the optical stations provides the use of mirrors to optimize the transmission and reception of the light beams also based on atmospheric conditions.
Clearly, this method works best in areas where rainfall and conditions are infrequent with fog.
At the moment Project Taara remains an experimental setting, and it has not been reported when network providers will be able to rely on it to make their services more accessible. The ultimate goal is to provide a network that does not require physical cables with a download speed of at least 20 Gbps. The video below shows some of the basic concepts of Project Taara, taken from the tests carried out in India.
