Infrared Based Li-Fi (Internet Via Light Waves) Makes Progress

Li-Fi witnesses even more progress and it has us all excited, all over again.

Slow Wi-Fi has always been a cause of concern for people making use of the internet through wi-fi pods available at public locations, at home or at work. Unfortunately, too much traffic and load, has quite often resulted in a slow, congested wi-fi service, which not only becomes an impediment for work, but in many cases, meddles with people’s right to receive important social services. Given the recent app revolution, emergency services apps are also receiving traction along with apps that make everyday life easier. A roadblock in the form of a slow/bad wi-fi service can exacerbate issues which require immediate supervision and action.

However, this might not remain a problem any more. Well, call us soothsayers, we’d first written about Li-Fi back in February of 2013! We’d educated our readers to this novel and extremely exciting tech that was being developed as a joint venture between the universities of Edinburgh, St Andrews, Strathclyde, Oxford, and Cambridge. An extremely elucidatory article, I highly recommend you read that one first, before proceeding with this current “update”.

The tech was exciting enough for us to research it over and over. We wrote about it again in January of 2016, when Velmenni an Estonian company had conducted some detailed tests on the tech. You should read that too, to know why Li-Fi is possibly the answer we’ve been looking for, for our networking woes.

Obviously, we aren’t the only ones besotted by this breakthrough technology.

Researchers at Netherland’s Eindhoven University of Technology have been working at Li-Fi and have developed a newer version of the wireless Internet system, based on harmless infrared rays which will not only make the internet experience smoother for the consumer, but also increases speeds a hundred times of what’s available these days.

The scientists expect internet reception speeds to reach around an astounding 40 Gigabits per second. The wireless service also does not require the user to share the service, since every device has its own, independent ray of light to connect to the wireless server!

How does it work?

The system is very simple and cheap to set up. A few central ‘light antennas’ are the source of the wireless data, which very efficiently and precisely, divert the light from any light source which is supplied by several communication and electronic devices like phones, tablets and desktops etc. The antennas comprise of a pair of gratings, which radiate light rays of different wavelengths at different angles. The direction of the ray of light changes with a change in the light wavelengths.

It is because of this reason, that the term ‘Li-Fi’ (Light instead of Wireless) is being coined for this new wireless internet system.

The radio signals transmitted by the network constantly track every device by receiving a radio signal in return. If a user walks around with her device and escapes the light antenna’s line of sight, another light antenna picks up the infrared ray to provide an uninterrupted service.

There’s another benefit — every time a new device connects to the network, it does not require you to share wireless bandwidth because each device is assigned a different wavelength. So there’s no splitting or sharing of bandwidth in the classical sense.

Apart from that, in the current wireless disposition, radio signals operate in frequencies between 2.5 or 5 gigahertz. Whereas, the new Li-Fi system utilises infrared light with wavelengths of 1,500 nanometres or higher that provide data through frequencies of around 200 terahertz, which would be an unbelievable improvement.

The technique is also harmless, given the fact that safe infrared wavelengths are used, it would not cause any health problems.

Despite all the progress, and intensive testing conducted over the last 3–4 years, Li-Fi is expected to take another 5 years to hit the stores.

This system might turn out to be a blessing for developing economies who are consistently employing the use of digital and internet based solutions. It is a cheaper and a more efficient solution than regular radio waves that are becoming more and more congested. In fact, once of my favourite benefits of this new system (other than the superb speeds, of course), is the fact that routers and network stations will not crowd the environment outside the home or office. Being restricted to areas inside the home, one won’t get to see the three million other internet connections in the vicinity and the router won’t be adding more traffic into an already crowded environment.

Therefore, homes, offices and public services would find a significant boost in efficiency along with more accessibility. And won’t that be a blessing!

Originally published at Chip-Monks.