I’ve written hundreds of articles about broadband internet technology, but I'd never heard about data being transmitted through invisible lasers before. This wasn’t the plot of a sci-fi movie. This was Taara, a graduate of X, Google’s Moonshot Factory, that uses beams of light to transmit data through the air at the speed of light.

I drove 140 miles from my home in Seattle to remote Selah, Washington, to see it in action. Three miles up a rocky dirt road, you’ll find a typical cellular tower, dotted with antennas dating back 40 years. This story is part of Crossing the Broadband Divide , CNET's coverage of how the country is working toward making broadband access universal.

If you know what you’re looking at, you can read it like a climate scientist reads ice cores. The oldest antenn

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