[Starlink] Alphabet spins off Starlink competitor Taara

[Steve Stroh]

Mike:

Wow! I was wondering what made Tara that different from all the previous
FSO vendors until I saw the range number. That’s a huge advantage to be
able to do that at optical thus no RF interference issues.

Thanks for the great writeup!

Steve Stroh

Steve Stroh N8GNJ (he / him / his)
Editor
Zero Retries Newsletter - https://www.zeroretries.org
Radios are Computers - With Antennas!


On Tue, Mar 18, 2025 at 02:43 Mike Puchol via Starlink <
starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:

> As I work for Taara, I’ll be happy to answer doubts & questions where I
> can!
>
> With that, a few thoughts. Please note that these are my own personal
> musings, and not the official position of Taara - I’m not in PR or marcomms.
>
> IMHO the “Taara is going to compete with Starlink” is a comment that was
> taken by a reporter and turned into the major headline. Think of it in
> terms of every time you heard of a social network startup becoming the new
> “Facebook killer”. Taara is currently playing in the middle mile, it is
> point to point, terrestrial only, and will move into last mile with the
> help of the optical phased array (the “Taara chip” that was announced at
> MWC).
>
> In order to directly compete with Starlink, we’d have to become a fully
> fledged ISP, and vertically integrate the whole distribution down to
> individual customers - and we know what kind of investment that requires.
> Can we help ISPs that play on the same turf as Starlink? Sure. Can we help
> in urban cellular networks where densification is challenged by congested
> RF and costly fiber? Yes indeed. Are we a replacement for Starlink? No.
>
> As for the current Taara Lightbridge system, it is a point to point,
> Earth-based, 20 Gbps bidirectional system. The maximum rated distance is 20
> km as we keep a certain reserve margin, however, we successfully closed a
> link at 54 km across the Bay Area, and technically we could achieve 75 km
> with zero margin.
>
> How do we keep a laser aligned? We use a combination of coarse pointing
> mirror which gives us 6º at slow rates (think compensation for structural
> movements due to day/night thermals), and a fine steering mirror that can
> adjust 0.5º at very high rates, used to compensate vibrations, and to some
> extent, scintillation.
>
> The chip allows us to remove some of these mechanical components and
> compress some of the system, for example, removing the coarse pointing
> mirror and making the telescope smaller. The OPA allows focusing and
> steering the laser beam, and also compensate for phase and wave front
> errors, something we can’t do with Lightbridge.
>
> Weather does affect the optical spectrum, to the tune of hundreds of dB/km
> at certain wavelengths - in scenarios where this can be a factor, we can be
> deployed in hybrid with an RF system. Our typical use cases are capacity
> upgrades, where instead of replacing an existing microwave link with
> another microwave link to maybe gain 1-2 Gbps, the operator can gain 20
> Gbps for 95-99.9% of the time.
>
> Best,
>
> Mike
> On Mar 17, 2025 at 22:22 -0700, Michael Richardson via Starlink <
> starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net>, wrote:
>
>
> David Lang via Starlink <starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>
> Since it kept talking about being a replacement for Starlink, I assumed
> that the towers would communicate with satellites. If there are no
> satellites being used, then it's not going to be a Starlink competitor
> as you would have to build a long chain of laser towers to try and
> provide service everywhere.
>
>
> (It would work fine for the flat earth types though)
> (or if you live on Terry Pratchard's Discword)
>
> But, seriously we have lots and lots of microwave towers from decades ago.
> I think most are abandonned due to fibre being better, but getting new
> rights
> of way for fiber is probably hard. The railways were delighted to be
> involved 30 years ago, but now, I suspect the field is closed to any new
> entrants.
>
> So lasers between towers makes a lot of sense to me.
> Particularly through/across marshy tundra in, for instance, Canada's north.
>
> Just not between pacific islands.
>
> --
> ] Never tell me the odds! | ipv6 mesh networks [
> ] Michael Richardson, Sandelman Software Works | network architect [
> ] mcr at sandelman.ca http://www.sandelman.ca/ | ruby on rails [
>
>
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