Report: ‘Li-Fi’ researchers claim speed breakthrough

PanARMENIAN.Net - Researchers claimed to have used "Li-Fi" at a rate that could one day provide internet connections hundreds of times faster than today’s speeds without using WiFi, The Daily Telegraph reports.

Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute (HHI) in Berlin said they reached a data transmission rate of 800 megabits per second using light emitting diodes, or LEDs.

The technology works by adapting LEDs to send digital information, invisible to the naked eye. A light sensor on a device picks up the digital information sent by the LED, which enables it to be processed by a computer.

Ofcom estimated last month that the average UK household broadband speed was 12 megabits per second in November last year, although the theoretical maximum of a WiFi connection is 7 gigabits per second on the latest standards. The Institute says that speeds of up to three gigabits per second are feasible using visible light.

High-definition films could be downloaded in a minute using “Li-Fi”, scientists at the University of Strathclyde claimed earlier this year.

Every light source in homes and offices could potentially be a “Li-Fi” router, providing data to smartphones, tablets and PCs. Harold Haas from the University of Edinburgh is credited with coining the term.

LEDs are expected to become the standard domestic light source within 20 years. They flicker on and off thousands of times a second, far more quickly than the human eye can see. This rate does not interfere with human vision and could be adapted to use a LiFi standard.

Professor Martin Dawson, from the University of Strathclyde, said in January: “Imagine an LED array beside a motorway helping to light the road, displaying the latest traffic updates and transmitting internet information wirelessly to passengers’ laptops, netbooks and smartphones.”

"This is technology that could start to touch every aspect of human life within a decade,” he said. HHI will present its findings to the Fiber Optics Expo in Tokyo next week.