All wifi is light-based…
Need c/angryupvote for this
I wonder if this iteration will end up being the iteration that finally becomes viable.
Estonia has been testing it since 2015, but their projected timeline for adoption never realized.
At this point it’s like, why not use Ethernet?
Here’s the first two scenarios that come to mind, if/when the price becomes reasonable.
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In a typical cube farm, you could string up a very small number of these in the drop ceiling and have Ethernet level speeds without having to run cables to every single desk. It should be a much easier install.
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At home, I could run an drop for these through my attic to the one or two rooms where I use a lot of bandwidth, eg my home office and living room. Again, an easier install than running Ethernet through the ceiling, down the walls and to every piece of equipment in those rooms.
For most people I’m not sure if it would be worth it, but I could certainly see it in those niches.
Another use case is this being deployed in addition to WiFi. You could cover office area with this and have client devices use faster connection most of the time while transparently dropping to wifi speeds when lifi connection is interrupted. It would give users faster speed and it would also improve situation for wifi only devices as the frequency would be much less congested.
Oy definitely, I can see a box that is a combo LiFi/WiFi access point with a single ethernet/fiber optic cable running to it providing the best network available for each device becoming a standard ceiling fixture in offices and tech forward homes.
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Sorry, but how is this faster than wifi?
Theoretical max for Wi-Fi in the 60GHz spectrum in 7G/s. Theoretical max for Li-Fi is 228G/s. Of course, no one is hitting those maxes now but in general Li-Fi is about 10x faster in the real world, or at least is you have the right prototype equipment.
Physics reason- LiFi uses shorter wavelengths so can switch faster.
so if we get to GammaFi we can be even faster
And penetrate walls much better.
Thank you, that makes sense. So the downside is you need line of sight and no interfering light sources?
Pretty much. I wouldn’t worry too much about interference from other light sources, as they are likely to be basically steady and not modulating.
Beam? What happened to the fibre? Is light that slower in a fibre cable?
