Cities in central Africa could start receiving high-speed internet thanks to new technology that uses beams of light to transmit broadband signal.
Technology firm Alphabet X – which was formerly known as Google X – has launched the new project known as Project Taara, which they hope will deliver high-speed internet via beams of light through the air.
The project has already seen data successfully transmitted across the Congo River, and means citizens in Brazzaville in the Republic of the Congo and Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo could start receiving faster and cheaper broadband.
Project Taara was born out of the now-defunct Project Loon, which attempted to use balloons sent into the stratosphere to transmit a broadband signal.
The latest experiment means that a "particularly stubborn connectivity gap" between the two African cities has been filled, as although the cities are only three miles apart, broadband prices are five times more expensive than other areas because traditional cable has to be routed around the Congo River.
In a blog post, Alphabet X said: "While we don't expect to see perfect reliability in all kinds of weather and conditions in future, we're confident Taara's links will continue to deliver similar performance and will play a key role in bringing fast, more affordable connectivity to the 17 million people living in these cities.”
The system uses very narrow, invisible beams of light to deliver high speeds, similar to the way traditional fibre in the ground uses light to carry data but without the cable casing.
