10 to 100 Times Faster than a Starlink Antenna, and Cheaper Than Fiber: Taara Unveils a Laser Internet That Could Shatter the Status Quo
10 to 100 Times Faster than a Starlink Antenna, and Cheaper Than Fiber: Taara Unveils a Laser Internet That Could Shatter the Status Quo
The company now operates in 12 countries and employs around 20 people.
That sounds like hard work.
20 people are probably the executives and upper management. The 90% of the company is filled by contractors
Just lay fiber. Stop. Just lay fiber.
Right? It seems like there's no reason to consider this niche solution except for crossing bodies of water as a last mile connection. Is there some shortage of fiber or just security concerns prompting all this investment?
If South Dakota can do it then its possible anywhere
Not very compareable systems. One covers the entire globe with satellites and another is just a fancy version of Wi-Fi. If you live somewhere remote you'd still need a bunch of masts within line of sight from eachother and if you're vanlifer or such then it's of no use.
I mean, cool technology but serves a bit different purpose. Especially in the edge cases.
Hang on that's not a fair comparison. So you will need to deploy some masts to reach remote areas, got it.
Satellite internet then needs to fire a satellite into space to cover the area of which now there are thousands of then And the satellite has a shelf life and will eventually burn up in the atmosphere requiring repeated deployments.
Masts sounds easier.
and it requires line of sight which means it is hard to scale, will have issues with adverse climate and probably will need frequent realigments
10 to 100 Times less reliable than WiFi
Taara is Google, just saying.
"has just broken free from Alphabet"
Do you mean the tech that has existed since forever ago and that was replaced by microwaves?
Asked cgpt to compare lasers to microwave for data transmission; take with a grain of salt, but seems transfer rate especially isn't comparable.
| Feature | Laser Transmission (e.g., Taara) | Microwave Transmission |
|---|---|---|
| Medium | Free-space optical (light, like a fiber-optic cable without fiber) | Radio/microwave frequencies (GHz range) |
| Wavelength | ~780–1600 nm (near-infrared) | ~1–100 GHz |
| Typical Data Rate | 10–100 Gbps (Taara targets ~20 Gbps and higher) | 100 Mbps – 1 Gbps (modern line-of-sight microwave) |
| Max Practical Range | ~10–20 km, highly sensitive to weather | ~30–50 km, more tolerant of weather |
| Line-of-Sight Requirement | Yes, with tight beam alignment needed | Yes, but more forgiving alignment |
| Weather Sensitivity | High — fog, rain, dust degrade performance | Moderate — heavy rain can attenuate signal |
| Latency | Low | Low |
| Power Usage | Lower power for same data rate | Slightly higher power use |
| Security | High — narrow beam, hard to intercept | Moderate — wider beam, easier to jam or intercept |
| Deployment | Harder — requires precision mounting and stability | Easier — flexible mounting, ruggedized equipment |
| Cost | Higher upfront (optical gear, alignment systems) | Lower per-unit, mature market |
| Use Cases | High-throughput backhaul (rural, terrain-constrained areas) | Medium-throughput links, often as telco backbone |
It is misrepresenting the facts quite a bit. I think microwave links might be able to do a bit more bandwidth. And laser can do way more than ChatGPT attributes to it. It can do 1 or 2.5 Gbps as well. The main thing about optics is that it comes without electromagnetic interference. And you don't need to have a fresnel zone without obstacles, and you don't need a license. The other things about laser being more susceptible to weather, etc should be about right. (And I don't know a lot about cost and alignment, so I don't really know if that's accurate and substancially more effort for lasers. They sure both cost some money and you have to point both at the receiver.)
Sooooo... microwave is still better, got it.
The problem with laser communication is that it doesn't take much rain, snow or fog to block the signal.
They claim they’ve overcome that hurdle though, as per the article.
Yes, but the article is literally nothing without that information.
The only interesting thing about a new approach to laser internet is if they've solved the critical issue holding it back.
I wonder what they did, though. Because the article is omitting most of the interesting details and frames it as if this as if optical communication in itself was something new or disruptive... I mean if I read the Wikipedia article on Long-range optical wireless communication, it seems a bunch of companies have already invested 3 digit million sums into solving this exact issue...
Okay, photo taken (by Gabriele Barni) from 17.1177 km (claimed metric kilometers) straight distance to the buildings:
.
You can imagine how wobbly the image was.
How to compensate it? Wide, powerful beam? Gonna be blinded by an invisible light?
Quote from the video: