Airtel-Alphabet's laser internet tech: How it works, why it matters?

Sunil Mittal-led Bharti Airtel has teamed up with Google’s parent, Alphabet to provide high-speed internet access to even the remotest villages in India by using beams of light or laser-based technologies, the companies said on Tuesday. The project, known as Taara, is part of Alphabet's innovation lab called X. What is the deal about, how the technology works and what does it mean for the India? Tech Circle takes a look.

What is project Taara?

Taara is part of Alphabet's innovation lab called ‘X’, also nicknamed the ‘Moonshot Factory’. X is Alphabet's research division that gave birth to self-driving technology firm Waymo, drone delivery service Wing and health tech startup Verily Life Sciences. Back in 2011, Alphabet subsidiary Google X started working on an unofficial project with a series of trial runs in California. In 2013, Google officially launched this project and called it Project Loon. Its objective was to provide 3G internet access to underserved and isolated communities using laser-based technology installed on high-altitude balloons. The project was cancelled in January 2021 owing to high costs and complexities. But the technology that was developed for the project led to Project Taara, which is named after the Estonian god of lightning. It has the same goal as Project Loon but it aims to deliver internet service to remote areas by using beams of light, according to a Google’s official blog on Taara, published in September 2021.

How it works?

Taara transmits information at very high speeds with the help of light in the form of a narrow, invisible beam, similar to a fibre optic cable, but without the cable and hence proves to be much cheaper. The beam is sent between two of its terminals to create a link. Taara's wireless optical communication links can transmit data at speeds of up to 20 Gbps over distances of up to 20 km, the company said.

In 2017, Taara was piloted in Andhra Pradesh and then tested in Africa. Now, Alphabet joined hands with India’s telecom provider Airtel for large-scale deployment of the technology in the country. It is currently available in 13 countries, including Australia, Kenya, and Fiji. The company has struck deals with local internet service providers such as Econet Group and its subsidiary Liquid Telecom in Africa, internet provider Bluetown in India and Digicel in the Pacific Islands.

Last year the Taara project said it had used the laser technology to create an internet link across the Congo River. It connected Brazzaville in the Republic of Congo and Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

What is the Alphabet Bharti Airtel deal about?

As said earlier, Alphabet's 'moonshot' ideas for bringing internet access to remote and rural areas with high-altitude balloons in the stratosphere failed due to cost and complexities. As Project Taara reportedly moved toward a larger-scale deployment of its laser-powered internet networking service in India, it then decided to rope in the country’s leading telecom provider Bharti Airtel to rollout the technology in India's remote areas. The report first published in Reuters on Monday, 26 June. The financial details of the deal were not disclosed.

“We are trying to be one of the cheapest and the most affordable place where you would be able to get dollar per gigabyte to the end consumers,” Taara head Mahesh Krishnaswamy, director and project lead of Project Taara at X, Alphabet’s “moonshot” research and development arm, said in the report.

The technology will be used to bring high-speed internet to remote areas for the first time, according to Airtel, which said that also helps to deliver faster internet to urban areas without having to dig and bury fibre-optic cables.

What challenges need to be addressed?

The technology is not without its challenges. The company said in the blog that one of the obvious is the potential for signal loss due to environmental factors like weather, air quality, and other obstacles that get in the way of the flicking lasers.

According to the Project Taara team, many of these challenges have been mitigated by modulating the laser power and adjusting how data is processed. "When Taara's beam has been affected by haze, light rain, or birds – or a curious monkey – we've not seen any service interruptions," Baris Erkmen, Director of Engineering for Taara said in a blog post.

Why Airtel-Alphabet's Taara deal matters to India?

Airtel has been a key partner for Taara since their initial collaboration in 2019.  This expanded partnership will support Airtel's ambitious 5G expansion plans, according to the telco. The integration of Taara's wireless optical communication links will enhance Airtel's network resilience and also provide high-capacity backbone and redundancy paths, a statement said.

The partnership therefore aims to bridge the digital divide in India. The telco also said that this collaboration aligns with Airtel's vision of offering seamless and affordable internet access to all, regardless of the geography or terrain.

Have Google and Airtel partnered in other areas? 

Yes. Google in July 2020 committed $10 billion investment for digitizing India, which Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet, said on a webcast during an annual “Google for India” event on 13 July 2020 that the company will do this “through a mix of equity investments, partnerships, and operational, infrastructure and ecosystem investments.” Further, Google announced in January 2022 that it will invest up to $1 billion as part of a long-term partnership with Bharti Airtel, aiming to boost India’s digital ecosystem. The investment includes a $700 million equity investment in the company and up to $300 million for commercial services. That includes programmes to make devices more affordable to consumers and other offering that are designed to accelerate digital inclusion. Alphabet however clarified in a statement that X and Google are sister companies under Alphabet, while Taara's partnership with Bharti Airtel is separate from the Google investment.