Move over Wi-Fi; 100 times faster Li-Fi is here

When the first version of the Wi-Fi protocol was released in 1997, it boasted wireless speeds of up to 2 megabits per second. Now, there's Li-Fi, a potential successor to Wi-Fi that's capable of transmitting data at 1 gigabit per second, about 100 times faster than today's average home wireless connection and 500 times faster than that first incarnation of Wi-Fi.
Li-Fi uses LED bulbs switching on and off billions of times per second to transmit strings of data. Think of the way a Morse code operator would tap out a message, then speed up the process by several orders of magnitude.
Though the communication takes place in the visible spectrum, meaning humans can see the light that's being emitted, the flickering happens far too fast for our eyes to notice it. In other words, to humans, a Li-Fi light bulb appears like any other, but actually transmits lightning-fast Internet at the same time.
Velmenni, an Estonian tech company that has installed Li-Fi in its offices, says that the technology has achieved speeds of up to 224 gigabits per second in the lab and 1 gigabit per second in real life, where transmissions must contend with other factors such as movement and interference from other light sources.
An office or industrial park could be outfitted with smart LED bulbs that could send data and provide illumination simultaneously, Velmenni CEO Deepak Solanki told IBTimes. 
"We are doing a few pilot projects within different industries where we can utilise the VLC (visible light communication) technology," said Solanki.
"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."
There's a catch, though: Because light can't pass through walls or other obstacles, a Li-Fi access point can cover only a single room. That means multiple smart LEDs will be needed to cover an apartment or a house with speedy wireless coverage. But on the other hand, wireless interference will be greatly reduced.
If you live in an apartment building, your devices can probably pick up Wi-Fi networks belonging to your neighbors. Those networks, all sharing the same frequencies, tend to interfere with one another, slowing down speeds for everyone. (That's why the 5 GHz Wi-Fi band tends to be faster: it can only be used by newer devices, so it's relatively uncrowded.) But a network that uses visible light is neatly contained by the walls, floors, and ceilings of the rooms it covers - no bleeding into adjacent areas.
Li-Fi might also be more secure than Wi-Fi. Because the wireless signal doesn't spill outside rooms or buildings, it's much harder for an intruder to set up nearby and gain access to the network. The Telegraph reports that intelligence agencies are interested in the potential security of Li-Fi, and that airlines are considering the technology for providing Internet access during flights.
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 far more data than a cellular tower. Think back to that lab-based record of 224 gigabits per second - that's 18 movies of 1.5 GB each being downloaded every single second.
The technology uses Visible Light Communication (VLC), a medium that uses visible light between 400 and 800 terahertz (THz). It works basically like an incredibly advanced form of Morse code - just like switching a torch on and off according to a certain pattern can relay a secret message, flicking an LED on and off at extreme speeds can be used to write and transmit things in binary code.
While Anthony Cuthbertson points out at IBTimes UK says Li-Fi will probably not completely replace Wi-Fi in the coming decades, the two technologies could be used together to achieve more efficient and secure networks.
Our homes, offices, and industry buildings have already been fitted with infrastructure to provide Wi-Fi, and ripping all of this out to replace it with Li-Fi technology isn't particularly feasible, so the idea is to retrofit the devices we have right now to work with Li-Fi technology.
The technology is still in its infancy today, but within the next few years, flickering LEDs could let us transfer gigabytes in the blink of an eye.
© 2015 The Christian Science Monitor with sciencealert.com