Project Taara's laser internet system beams broadband across the Congo River

Project Taara’s wireless optical communications links are now beaming light-speed connectivity from Brazzaville (Republic of Congo) to Kinshasa (Democratic Republic of Congo). In the same way traditional fibre uses light to carry data through cables in the ground, Taara’s wireless optical communication links use very narrow, invisible beams of light to deliver fiber-like speeds. To create a link, Taara’s terminals search for each other, detect the other’s beam of light, and lock-in like a handshake to create a high-bandwidth connection. Separated by the Congo River, the world’s deepest and second fastest river, Brazzaville and Kinshasa are only 4.8 kilometers apart — yet connectivity is five times more expensive in Kinshasa because the fiber connection has to travel more than 400 kms to route around the river. After installing Taara’s links to beam connectivity over the river, the project's link served nearly 700 TB of data in 20 days with 99.9 percent availability. While Taara doesn’t expect to see perfect reliability in all kinds of weather and conditions in the future, the project's team is confident its links will continue to deliver similar performance and will play a key role in bringing faster, more affordable connectivity to the 17 million people living in these cities.