Alphabets Project Taara laser tech beamed 700TB of data across nearly 5km

In January, Google’s parent company, Alphabet, shut down Project Loon, an initiative exploring using stratospheric helium balloons to distribute wireless internet (an attempt to use solar-powered drones folded in 2017). However, some technology developed as a part of the Loon project remained in development, specifically the Free Space Optical Communications (FSOC) links that were originally meant to connect the high flying balloons — and now that technology is actively in use providing a high-speed broadband link for people in Africa.

Sort of like fiber optic cables without the cable, FSOC can create a 20Gbps+ broadband link from two points that have a clear line of sight, and Alphabet’s moonshot lab X has built up Project Taara to...

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