Taara, a laser internet startup that has been called a competitor to Elon Musk's Starlink, is leaving the Alphabet incubator (Google's parent company) and going independent, The Verge reports.
According to the Financial Times, Alphabet will retain a minority stake in Taara, which also received funding from Series X Capital, a venture capital fund. The startup currently has two dozen employees and operates in 12 countries.
Taara's technology uses lasers to transmit the Internet from one traffic light-sized terminal to another at speeds of up to 20 Gbps over distances of up to 20 km. The terminals can be mounted on towers. They are faster and cheaper to install than fiber.
Although the tower-based technology works differently than Starlink's satellites, the company is positioning itself as a competitor in rural connectivity.
"We can offer 10, if not 100 times more bandwidth to an end user than a typical Starlink antenna, and do it for a fraction of the cost," founder Mahesh Krishnaswamy told Wired.
Previously, Elon Musk called Starlink terminals "the backbone of the Ukrainian army" and that the entire "front line would collapse" if he shut them down. A controversy erupted on social network X, and the billionaire clarified that he was not going to shut them down.
