Alphabet, Bharti Airtel to bridge India's digital divide with frickin' laser beams

[6pack]

Source: The Register

The endeavor is part of Alphabet's Project Taara – which has been under development since 2019. On Monday the many-headed web Hydra revealed its first major collaboration with Indian telecommunications service provider Bharti Airtel: to use lasers to bridge gaps in terrestrial network infrastructure.

Over the next few months, Airtel plans to deploy Taara's optical links in both rural and urban areas to extend internet access to under-served parts of the country.

the Project Taara website, which claims its tech can pipe 30x more data through its optical interconnect than is possible using radio spectrum. As for Taara's terminals, Alphabet says each is capable of speeds up to 20Gbit/sec. While it might not sound like all that much, it's actually on par with the kinds of passive optical networks commonly deployed by broadband service providers.

Wonder how costly it would be! Doubt the equipment will come below ₹10k.

 

[kartikoli]

Yet another service where as they should concentrate on basic Internet needs, First give decent speed to normal users

 

[solo_wing]

Yet another service where as they should concentrate on basic Internet needs, First give decent speed to normal users

There are many rural and remote areas that too need internet.

Normal users from metros these days are getting much better internet than few sometime ago and it is improving at good pace.

I am getting kind of decent 5g from jio from a place where i could not even get 4g about few months back . I just noticed it this month only but having travelled to other mountain areas . I do see need of good internet to expand education to children and teenagers there too .

This is quite a initiative and hope this will help people living in such places tii .

In general I have seen people from metro cities only thinking of need of infrastructure and better services for them only but there is much attention needed in parts of India still living in hard conditions.

 

[kartikoli]

There are many rural and remote areas that too need internet.

Normal users from metros these days are getting much better internet than few sometime ago and it is improving at good pace.

I am getting kind of decent 5g from jio from a place where i could not even get 4g about few months back . I just noticed it this month only but having travelled to other mountain areas . I do see need of good internet to expand education to children and teenagers there too .

This is quite a initiative and hope this will help people living in such places tii .

In general I have seen people from metro cities only thinking of need of infrastructure and better services for them only but there is much attention needed in parts of India still living in hard conditions.

Lets hope its cheap as well, else people living in remote areas won't be able to use. I remember when Airtel was all over the TV about last mile coverage and fastest network Bla Bla.... but the price of that data was too high also not sure if those claims were actually correct. (Don't have any personal experience)

 

[blr_p]

This is quite a initiative and hope this will help people living in such places tii .

In general I have seen people from metro cities only thinking of need of infrastructure and better services for them only but there is much attention needed in parts of India still living in hard conditions.

20 Gbps bidirectional over 20km. Sounds really good

Taara - A Google X Moonshot

Taara is Google X's moonshot to provide fast, abundant, affordable connectivity using beams of light.

x.company

 

[superczar]

Lets hope its cheap as well, else people living in remote areas won't be able to use. I remember when Airtel was all over the TV about last mile coverage and fastest network Bla Bla.... but the price of that data was too high also not sure if those claims were actually correct. (Don't have any personal experience)

Last mile has actually bcome relatively easy in rural areas..
Wireless Point to Point (PTP) links are really cheap and extremely reliable ..

The problem is with getting good upstream link - and that I think is where something like this will come handy.
A single hub in a village/ village cluster with a high speed upstream link that then spokes out either wired or via cheap 802.11AC PTP links