Taara, the Alphabet spinoff that emerged from Google's X moonshot lab last year, just launched Taara Beam - a shoebox-sized device that beams 25Gbps internet across cities using invisible light. The product represents a shift from the company's initial focus on connecting remote communities to targeting dense urban markets where fiber deployment remains expensive and slow. It's a direct challenge to traditional ISPs and a test of whether optical wireless can finally break into mainstream infrastructure.
Taara is taking its optical wireless technology from the mountains to the streets. The Alphabet spinoff, which spun out of Google's X lab in 2025, just unveiled Taara Beam - a compact device that transmits 25Gbps internet across cities using invisible beams of light. It's a bold play for urban infrastructure that could reshape how internet reaches buildings where fiber never will.
The shoebox-sized Beam weighs just 8kg and draws about 90W of power, making it practical for mounting on street poles and rooftops across metropolitan areas. According to The Verge, the device can maintain line-of-sight connections at distances up to 10km - roughly covering a small to mid-sized city with strategic placement. That's half the range of Taara's previous Lightbridge product, but the tradeoff comes with urban-friendly form factor and deployment flexibility.
Taara's technology relies on free-space optical communication, essentially turning the air between buildings into fiber-optic cable. The system fires focused beams of infrared light between transceivers, achieving throughput that rivals traditional fiber without digging up streets or navigating complex permitting. When Alphabet first developed the technology inside X, the goal was connecting underserved communities separated by geographic barriers. Now the company is betting that same tech can solve last-mile problems in cities where fiber economics don't make sense.
