Alphabet’s moonshot “X Lab” Project Taara was updated today. Known as “fiber optics without the fiber,” the company built a working installation in Africa & is connecting a town of millions to the internet through a 20Gbps link about 5 kilometers across the Congo River.
Taara’s wireless optical communications links are now beaming light-speed connectivity from Brazzaville to Kinshasa across the Congo River. Separated by the Congo River, the world’s deepest & second fastest river, Brazzaville & Kinshasa are only 4.8 kilometers apart — yet connectivity is five times more expensive in Kinshasa because the fiber connection has to travel more than 400 kms to route around the river.
After installing Taara’s links to beam connectivity over the river, Taara’s link served nearly 700 TB of data — the equivalent of watching a FIFA World Cup match in HD 270,000 times — in 20 days with 99.9% availability.
To read more on Project Taara, click here.
Image credit: X Lab
