aurora
Own Correspondent
Google’s parent company Alphabet, yesterday announced it has tapped the Econet Group as its partner to launch a new high-speed broadband technology that uses laser beams instead of fibre optic cables.
The new technology can be deployed to connect two points that are 20km apart in a matter of hours, instead of about two weeks of digging to lay fibre cables.
It can currently deliver up to 10Gbits of Internet capacity at the ‘speed of light’ capable of streaming high-quality video.
It is ideal for connecting small towns, mines and large businesses. It can also be used to connect areas that are unsafe to lay fibre cables.
News of the partnership between Google and Econet, reported by Techcrunch.com and several tech news outlets, represents a massive opportunity for Econet, which has set up a new company based in Nairobi Kenya to roll out a supporting network to Liquid Telecom’s fibre optic network business across Africa.
Liquid Telcom is part of the Econet Group and has the largest fibre network across Africa.
The new technology was developed by a company in Alphabet’s stable called X, and it looks at finding new high tech solutions known as “Moon Shots”.
Bongani Ndlovu