(Newswire.net — October 20, 2022) — The Internet plays a significant role in our daily lives in this modern, digital era. It changed the way we communicate, do our tasks, work, study, do business, and so on. By utilizing the Internet, people are able to progress in several life aspects such as connecting with friends and family from afar. The nostalgia is no longer severe because we can now video call them anytime wherever we are.
During the pandemic, students and teachers were still able to meet online for sessions despite the lockdowns. Shopping from other countries has been made easy too. Information of all sorts is readily available now.
Wireless connection made it convenient for us to move and do a lot of stuff without consuming too much time and energy.
In the United States alone, there are already over 120 million households with fixed Internet subscriptions which grew significantly from 2000-2020 according to Statista. The mobile data traffic is expected to increase by about 77.5 exabytes per month based on Cisco’s Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast Update from 2017-2022.
The demand for wireless connection will continue to move upwards at an exponential rate. The question is, can our current wireless network keep up?
Wi-Fi has given us mobility, convenience, expandability, productivity, and so much more. However, just like any advancement, new technology will appear one after another.
Is Li-Fi the New Alternative to Wi-Fi?
Li-Fi is a close relative of Wi-Fi. Both of them use electromagnetic waves to transmit data, but the former uses the light spectrum while the latter utilizes the radiofrequency spectrum.
Li-Fi technology can revolutionize our wireless connection in a broader spectrum because it only needs LED light energy to communicate and send data to and fro the device. It is under the broad category of Visible Light Communication (VLC).
Light becomes data in this tech. Experts have seen LiFi perform at impressively high speeds that can surpass what WiFi is giving us today.
LiFi shows promise and can replace Wi-Fi or improve the current network.
Under laboratory conditions, Li-Fi was able to reach real-time 1Gbps and according to experts and developers, it has a potential speed of up to 224 Gbps. It is also more secure because light waves do not pass through walls meaning the data transmission can’t be easily breached or interfered with as opposed to radio waves.
RF spectrum is also limited and this can be a real cause for concern in the coming years. Li-Fi can accommodate more because it avoids the oversaturated RF spectrum.
It is healthier for us and won’t cost too much to deploy. It is energy efficient because no more external routers, complex receivers, or circuits are needed to make it work. LiFi just uses the same electricity that the light fixture consumes.
What Is Li-Fi & How Does It Work?
LiFi or Light Fidelity was developed and introduced by German Physicist and professor Harald Haas of Edinburgh University in 2011 during his TEDGlobal Talk.
This technology can be traced back to the origins of VLC in Graham Bell’s 1880 ‘Photophone’ invention. The photophone also uses a beam of light to transmit speech.
LiFi networks are bi-directional with uplinks and downlinks that can be formed between the transmitter and receiver simultaneously. It relies on light energy and not on radio waves to communicate data, unlike Wi-Fi.
The LED light fixture acts as an access point for data. It becomes the router itself.
It can read and transmit data through modulations or rapid light impulses emitted by the source. The human eye won’t be able to detect any flickering because it happens a million times per second. These pulses are then captured and decoded by a receiver.