We started Taara with a mission to bring affordable high-speed internet to the hardest-to-reach places on Earth. From delivering connectivity to the people of Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria to bringing broadband to communities across rivers, railroads, and mountains of India and Africa, Taara has shown that fiber-like speeds don’t always require fiber in the ground. With every deployment, our goal has been simple: connect communities that are left behind.

That mission has taken us to some of the most challenging environments in the world – across dense forests, over wide rivers, and into city centers that have waited years for reliable and meaningful access to the internet. Taara Lightbridge has been used to restore connectivity after fiber cuts, support operators racing to keep up with the capacity demands of mobile networks, and help provide emergency communication in the wake of disasters. When data can travel as beams of light through the air, geography becomes less of an obstacle.

Now, we’re taking that same approach to deliver Taara's solution for enterprise and carrier customers in the U.S. Partnering with StarTouch, a subsidiary of Declaration Networks Group and provider of connectivity solutions for enterprise, public sector, and carrier customers, we’re extending the reach of Taara Lightbridge into factories, campuses, retail hubs, and data-heavy enterprise sites – places where speed, resilience, and redundancy are critical to everyday operations.

Enterprises need resilience, now more than ever

Enterprises will need network connectivity that is about more than just speed – they’ll need lower latency, greater resilience, higher quality of service, and more flexibility in order to push forward with business growth. Manufacturing plants, automotive facilities, retail hubs, and education campuses need to minimize downtime, and they often need to bring new sites online in a matter of days, not months.


StarTouch has spent more than two decades building carrier-grade connectivity solutions across the U.S. Its hybrid networks of fiber and licensed microwave already serve carriers, large enterprises, and customers in the public sector. By adding wireless optical communication into the mix, StarTouch can now offer customers true route diversity, faster deployments, and a more cost-effective way to reach more sites without waiting for new fiber builds.
‍
With Taara Lightbridge, StarTouch can deliver 20 Gbps of speeds over distances of up to 20 km, with ultra-low latency that supports critical applications. Installations take just hours and can be handled by a single technician on either end of the link, making it easier to respond quickly to customer needs.

Fiber-like speeds with light-based resilience

Taara’s wireless optical communication links, or Taara Lightbridge, use beams of light to deliver high-speed, high-capacity connectivity over long distances. In the same way traditional fiber uses light to carry data through cables in the ground, Taara Lightbridge uses light to transmit information at speeds as high as 20 Gbps per second as very narrow, invisible beams. This beam is sent between two small Taara terminals to create a link.


The terminals are lightweight – only around 13 kilograms – and operate on an unlicensed spectrum. That means there are no lengthy spectrum licensing processes and no recurring fees, while the smaller size reduces tower rental costs and energy use. For enterprise customers, that will translate into lower total cost of ownership and faster access to the bandwidth they need. For StarTouch, it means being able to extend their reach into new markets and serve customers in disruption-prone or hard-to-reach locations.

Shining a light on what's possible

This collaboration is more than simply adding another technology to StarTouch’s portfolio. It’s about changing how industries think about connectivity. What once required months of trenching and permitting can now be achieved in a fraction of the time with beams of light. For StarTouch’s enterprise and carrier customers, it means new options for rapid deployment, route diversity, and continuity of service. For Taara, it’s a chance to show how wireless optical communication can play a role not just in connecting the unconnected, but also in helping organizations build stronger, more agile networks.


By combining StarTouch’s expertise in managed services with Taara’s advances in wireless optical communication, we’re helping to create networks that are faster to deploy, more resilient to disruption, and more accessible to the communities and businesses that need them most. It’s another step in our mission to extend and amplify the global communications network – by harnessing the power of light.
‍
If you are a carrier or enterprise building a future-proof network, get in touch with us.