From WiFi to LiFi

Coding information on a light beam is conceptually the same as coding it on a radio beam. Both are electromagnetic waves the difference being in their frequency, much higher in the case of light (light used to be "seen" as a different branch of physics and those studying it got used to talk in terms of wavelengths rather than frequencies. However the two are two faces of the same coin, bound by the speed of light: λ=c/f).
Having a much higher frequency (at least 3 orders of magnitude higher) we can encode much more information on a beam of light. On the other hand a wall, or a tree, will stop the light beam and so propagation of the signal is much more complicated.
It is now at least fifteen years that researchers have been working on using light as an alternative to WiFi (the term LiFi, Light Fidelity, was coined in 2011 in a Ted Talk by Harald Haas) and there are now a number of products with a market that is expected to grow to reach 6 B$ in 2018.  Some cities are considering using street illumination to bath streets with LiFi providing up to 1Gbps connectivity.  Of course in LiFi the communication is basically unidirectional (downlink) and one should use a different technology for the uplink. Notice that 5G may come handy in this respect being able to aggregate different gateways/technologies within a single session.
Now a team of researchers at the University of Eindhoven, one of our EIT Digital partner, is proposing to use infrared light as a WiFi conduit. This would allow speeds 100 times faster than the one delivered today by WiFi. 
The system works with several beaming stations on the ceiling. Each station has an optical fibre as a feeder and beams different infrared wavelengths in the room. As a device move in the room it connects to the closest station and the system automatically reroute the information stream to the wavelength assigned to that device. Hence there is no bandwidth competition among the devices and each can get a stream exceeding (in the experiment) 40Gbps. The upstream link can be managed through a normal WiFi gateway.

About Roberto Saracco

Roberto Saracco fell in love with technology and its implications long time ago. His background is in math and computer science. Until April 2017 he led the EIT Digital Italian Node and then was head of the Industrial Doctoral School of EIT Digital up to September 2018. Previously, up to December 2011 he was the Director of the Telecom Italia Future Centre in Venice, looking at the interplay of technology evolution, economics and society. At the turn of the century he led a World Bank-Infodev project to stimulate entrepreneurship in Latin America. He is a senior member of IEEE where he leads the New Initiative Committee and co-chairs the Digital Reality Initiative. He is a member of the IEEE in 2050 Ad Hoc Committee. He teaches a Master course on Technology Forecasting and Market impact at the University of Trento. He has published over 100 papers in journals and magazines and 14 books.