A new type of wireless internet technology has been developed that could provide a connection that’s 100 times faster than traditional Wi-Fi. Li-Fi (Light Fidelity) has proved capable of sending data at speeds of up to 1GBps, around 100 times faster than most current Wi-Fi connections.
Li-Fi is now moving to trials in the real world, with office tests in Tallin, Estonia achieving speeds of 1GB per second. This makes it 100-times faster than current Wi-Fi technologies.
Li-Fi was invented by Harald Haas from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland back in 2011, when he demonstrated for the first time that by flickering the light from a single LED, he could transmit for more data than a cellular tower. Think back to that lab-based record of 224 gigabits per second – that’s 18 movies of 1.5GB each being downloaded every single second.
Deepak Solanki, CEO of Estonian tech company, Velmenni, said, “”We are doing a few pilot projects within different industries where we can utilize the VLC (visible light communication) technology.”
“Currently we have designed a smart lighting solution for an industrial environment where the data communication is done through light. We are also doing a pilot project with a private client where we are setting up a Li-Fi network to access the Internet in their office space,” said by Deepak Solanki.
Harald Haas said, “All we need to do is fit a small microchip to every potential illumination device and this would then combine two basic functionalities: illumination and wireless data transmission, in the future we will not only have 14 billion light bulbs, we may have 14 billion Li-Fi deployed worldwide for a cleaner, greener and even brighter future.”
Lab tests have shown that Li-Fi can hit speeds 100 times faster than current Wi-Fi systems. Speed is not the only advantage of Li-Fi.
The system uses visible light communication between 400 and 800 terahertz to transmit messages in binary code. Visible light cannot pass through walls, making Li-Fi a much more secure system, and less susceptible to interference.
While the system seems promising, it won’t likely replace Wi-Fi entirely, at least not anytime soon. Instead, researchers are now looking to retrofit devices with Li-Fi to use the two wireless systems together to optimize speed and security.