How Google's Taara can help provide faster internet connectivity to rural India?

present digital infrastructure and its growth are governed by factors like good internet connectivity. What remains an area of concern is fast and stable internet connections in remote areas of India. Alphabet's innovation lab called X, also nicknamed "Moonshot Factory", has a solution to this which can help internet transmission with help of beams of light.

project named 'Taara' uses laser light to transmit information at high speeds through air as a very narrow invisible beam which involves no cables, unlike conventional methods of broband internet. technology is mostly aimed at providing connectivity to areas where fibre fails to reach. At present, most of high-speed connectivity operations are handled by rio spectrum, but with growing data demand in future, rio spectrum would be insufficient alone as global internet traffic is expected to grow at a faster rate.

team has partnered with Bharti Airtel, or telcos and internet service providers and is now planning for large-scale deployment of new laser technology in India. team plans to implement a speed of approximately 20 Gbps over distances up to 20 kilometres. At present, nearly 3 billion people around world do not have access to Internet, and billions more remain underserved with growing data demand, according to Alphabet's Company X.

"Taara will also help deliver faster internet services in urban areas in developed countries. It is less expensive to beam data between buildings than to bury fibre-optic cables. We are trying to be one of cheapest and most affordable places where you would be able to get a dollar per gigabyte for end consumers," Bharti Airtel's CTO, Randeep Sekhon told Reuters.

Republic reached out to Bharti Airtel for comments, but it has been unanswered till time of publishing.

"A cellular site with a remote internet connection (backhaul) can cover a large population and area, backhaul could be LEO (low earth orbiting satellite connections) or over microwave connections," Rajesh Mishra, CEO, A5G Networks told Republic on measures needed in remote areas of India.

"When it comes to connecting remote areas, cellular is only technology that comes to mind, it is designed for wide areas that could be sparsely or densely populated," Mishra ds.

According to company, Taara team is currently deploying ir light beam technology in India, Africa and or locations around world. In terms of specifications, Taara can promise a cost-effective and easily deployable infrastructure that can boost connectivity in remote cities as well as villages. It has potential to help thousands of people in areas of education, business and communication benefits of web.

According to experts, a beam of light would work efficiently, but it has limitations in line-of-sight deployments as well as distance and environmental conditions that impact performance. A better approach would be looking into many different possibilities for backhaul, such as satellites, microwaves or lasers.