Last month, NMSurf announced the deployment of Taara Lightbridge for middle-mile connectivity for a nine-mile area near La Bajada, New Mexico. Last week, Telecompetitor spoke with NMSurf President and CEO Albert Catanach about the company’s decision to use Taara Lightbridge and his experience with the technology.
NMSurf is one of the largest fixed wireless providers in New Mexico, serving the central and northern area of the state. La Bajada was previously served by a 3-Gig microwave middle-mile connection. But, Catanach said, the bandwidth was becoming insufficient. New microwave licenses are hard to come by in New Mexico, he added, because the state itself claims many licenses for radio communications.
Catanach learned about Taara Lightbridge at the October WISPAPALOOZA conference, an annual event put on by WISPA–The Association for Broadband Without Boundaries. Catanach described Taara Lightbridge as “fiber over the air.”
Taara — a company created in Google’s Moonshot Factory — developed Lightbridge to send data through the air via light beams. The technology is known as free-space optical or wireless optical.
In September 2024, WISPA called on the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to consider a “right tool for the right job” approach to the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program, including free-space optical technology among its recommended technologies.
After asking several questions about whether Taara Lightbridge would work for NMSurf’s situation, Catanach decided to try it out.
He couldn’t be happier with the results.
The Taara Lightbridge system allowed NMSurf to immediately add 20 Gig of bandwidth to the La Bajada connection. The next step is for NMSurf to upgrade the customer premises equipment (CPE) for nearby residents. Once that’s done, Catanach expects that people in the area who previously could only experience 200 Mbps, 100 Mbps, or lower speeds will have access to Gigabit speeds.
The additional bandwidth will also strengthen other connections in the area, including the state’s traffic cameras, which run on NMSurf connectivity.
NMSurf still plans to deploy a fiber middle-mile backbone to the area. But, with the rocky terrain near La Bajada Hill, Catanach estimates a fiber build will take more than a year. NMSurf deployed the Taara Lightbridge system in a week.
Because of the system’s early success, Catanach said NMSurf will deploy Taara Lightbridge exclusively in some areas. Permitting for fiber builds can be complicated in New Mexico, where certain areas are a complex mix of state and Tribal land. “We have existing tower sites, so we’re going to put [Taara Lightbridge] in a couple of spots where we need more bandwidth and get these people better internet,” Catanach said.
He described a rural area between Santa Fe and Española — the communities of El Rancho and Pojoaque. “There are a lot of little Tribes in there. We probably have a couple of Gigs of bandwidth there right now. We’re going to increase that to 20 Gig in both of those sites and give Gigabit speeds to these little areas that are really hurting for bandwidth.”
Catanach said he has heard that the Taara Lightbridge system can be less effective in fog or in high-humidity climates, neither of which are large concerns in the areas NMSurf serves. “Even during the snow, it was doing great,” he said. “During the rain, it was doing really well. The redundancy is a good thing: If the Taara has an issue, the microwave kicks in. If the microwave has an issue, the Taara kicks in.”
He said he hopes Taara — which currently offers only a point-to-point system — will develop a point-to-multipoint system. “Then you could put one of these up and have customers all over connecting to it.”
