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Alphabet s Other Bet punt turns out not to be a winner
System designed to provide broadband to the last billion unserved consumers on earth
Alphabet, Google s parent company, has let the last of the gas out of the once-huge hype-bag that kept the Loon project in the air. Loon was an initiative that was supposed to provide wireless mobile telecoms and broadband Internet coverage via arrays of helium balloons sited in the stratosphere.
But, even in an industry infamous for its hyperventilating hyperbole, a truly immense amount of hot air and other gases swirled around Loon from the moment the project was announced and continued to vent for years thereafter until the roaring fumarole eventually dwindled to the occasional windy burble. Technology journalists, who covered Loon stories multiple times and were really quite engaged by the potential of the technology were nonetheless very thankful when the hurricane of press releases finally petered out.
Alphabet’s X Lab has devised a way to relay internet signals through wireless optical communications links, or light beams to put it more simply, under a project called Project Taara. (Google/Project Taart)
Google wants to use light beams to bring internet to some of India’s most remote areas, as reports have it. This is not Google’s first foray into internet plans - it already has Loon and the company also was working on bringing high-speed internet to Indian railways stations, a project that has now been discontinued.
However, to make the latest plan fruitful, Google is reportedly joining hands with a fw local Indian telcos.