What could the humble light bulb’s inventor possibly say if he found out his creation would, in the future, be used not just to light up homes, offices, streets, etc. but also as a way to transmit data so that people can download information through satellites in space straight to their gadgets?
That is exactly what Li-Fi aims to do: make regular lighting double as a data transmission tool built with speeds as much as 100 times faster than Wi-Fi.
First conceptualised by Harold Haas from the University of Edinburgh back in 2011, Li-Fi makes use of Visible Light Communication, or VLC, to send data at impressive speeds. While Wi-Fi is capable of reaching up to 600Mbps; in lab-based experiments alone, Li-Fi was able to transmit as fast as 224 gigabits per second.
In real-life settings, Li-Fi was put to the test in office and other industrial setting trials in Tallinn. In this case, Li-Fi achieved speeds of about one gigabit per second.
Apart from speed, Li-Fi also has other advantages over Wi-Fi. Security is one example since signals are carried by optical light, it cannot penetrate walls, amplifying local network security.
However, this can also prove to be a liability, because it is a limitation that leaves users without a connection if they leave the room. If the technology is further developed to surpass this obstacle, the use of visible spectrum could enable Li-Fi to utilise a wider range of frequencies to send messages across; better than Wi-Fi which operates only between 2.4 gigahertz and 5 gigahertz frequencies.
Because of this possibility, it has been suggested that Li-Fi could be the answer to the problem of increasing frequency congestion with the rise of Internet usage across the world.
It remains to be seen when Li-Fi can feasibly be implemented on a wider scale, but for now, VLC is already finding a number of useful applications. As of writing, a number of products that make use of the technology are already being developed.
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Article originally published as: New Li-Fi Internet Is 100 Times Faster Than Wi-Fi
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