What if you could use a 3$ LED bulb to access the internet? What if your internet speed reaches 100Gbps? Let’s see how that’s becoming a reality.

Wireless fidelity, in short WiFi - has been a basic tool of our day-to-day communication these days. We have been producing 2.5 quintillion (10¹⁸) bytes of data every day [1] and with so much data being transmitted, there are some concerns regarding the usage of wifi networks. The pioneer of Lifi, Professor Harald Haas identified problems of wifi as

1. Spectrum: As wifi functions in the radio wave spectrum, there is an overwhelming load on that region. Few years back Julius Genachowski, Federal Communications Commission chairman of US said that it was urgently important for the wireless industry of the United States to have its grasp on underutilized sections of the spectrum owned by government departments or TV stations. Due to such a high data load and fast-growing usage demand, the ultimate result is going to be saturation and crippling of bandwidth throughout the available RF spectrum.

2. Interference: As Wifi requires Radio Frequency as a medium for data traffic, electronic gadgets and frequent installations that bog down the connection are already interfered with. Usage of wifi has always been restricted in the airplane, special sites and the signals are found to be intercepted on multiple occasions. Congestion has been a major contributor to network problems and this happens quite often with Wifi networks specially with the most common 2.4GHz version of it. [2] [3]

3. Efficiency: The ICT grid consumes around 900 billion Kilo Watt per hour every year and accounts for about 10% of the world's electricity usage. [4]. Reports suggest that about half of a mobile telecommunications operator's gross operating expenses are its electricity costs.[5]

4. Security: Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS), Denial of Service (DoS), Session Hijacking, Man in the middle ,Jamming, Evil Twin Attack, Rogue APS and varieties of attacks on wifi networks[6][7] These cyber-attacks put the users in a spot of bother because of the vulnerable network system.

Lifi is bidirectional where data is transmitted using light whose intensity varies faster than human eye to capture. Instead of using modems, Li-Fi uses LED bulbs with transceiver. This technology does not only solve the problems of wifi but also provide added benefits.

1. Spectrum: Lifi uses the visible light wave whose frequency ranges from 4x10¹⁴ Hz to 7.9x10¹⁴ Hz which is 10,000 times wider than that of radiowave. That’s how the spectrum concern does not become an issue if we are shifting towards lifi.

2. Efficiency: LED lamps can exhibit upto 43.9% efficiency [9]. We are getting the data transmission along with illumination which can bring paradigm shift to the energy consumption rate as there will be no need of inefficient network base stations that offers only 5% of efficiency[10].

3. Interference: Lifi signals in no way interfering with the existing Radio frequency waves which gives us access to internet in places like aeroplane and it also does not pose any health threat like Wifi does [11]. Even the underwater communication has been made possible only due to lifi because radiowaves often get absorbed by water.

4. Security : Being dependent on visible light makes of lifi less vulnerable as anyone cannot be doing eavesdropping without you being known [12]. There cannot be anyone next to your apartment get access into your Lifi network.

Market Availability

Here is a list of companies that are working to make Lifi available for everyone[13]

Li-Fi Market size has crossed the USD 70 million mark back in 2019 and is predicted to be growing at a CAGR of more than 50% within the year 2030 [13]

Countries Adopted

Indonesia, Mexico , Russia, France, Netherlands, US, Japan, UAE, Spain, Estonia , India and many other countries are working with Lifi while Mexico was the first country to commercialize it back in 2016. [14]

So, Lifi is the future and that future looks very bright. Till then, let’s stick to the bulky wifi routers!

-This Article is authored by Mohammad Iftekher Ebne Jalal (Iftu)

References:

[1] Jacquelyn Bulao, “How Much Data Is Created Every Day in 2020?” https://techjury.net/blog/how-much-data-is-created-every-day (accessed Oct. 03, 2020).

[2] A. Kashyap, U. Paul, and S. R. Das, “Deconstructing Interference Relations in WiFi Networks,” in 2010 7th Annual IEEE Communications Society Conference on Sensor, Mesh and Ad Hoc Communications and Networks (SECON), Jun.2010, pp.1–9.

[3] A. P. Jardosh, K. N. Ramachandran, K. C. Almeroth, and E. M. Belding-Royer, “Understanding congestion in IEEE 802.11b wireless networks,” Proc. ACM SIGCOMM Internet Meas. Conf. IMC, pp. 279–292, 2005,

[4] G. Fettweis and E. Zimmermann, “ICT energy consumption-trends and challenges,” Int. Symp. Wirel. Pers. Multimed. Commun., no. Wpmc 2008, pp. 2006–2009, 2008.

[5] F. Han, Z. Safar, W. S. Lin, Y. Chen, and K. J. R. Liu, “Energy-efficient cellular network operation via base station cooperation,” IEEE Int. Conf. Commun., pp. 4374–4378, 2012.

[6] T. Rowan, “Negotiating WiFi security,” Netw. Secur., vol. 2010, no. 2, pp. 8–12, Feb. 2010, doi: 10.1016/S1353-4858(10)70024-6.

[7] “IT 101 – TYPES OF WIRELESS NETWORK ATTACKS,” 2020. https://2wtech.com/it-101-types-of-wireless-network-attacks (accessed Oct. 03, 2020).

[8] Wikipedia, “Luminous Efficacy.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminous_efficacy].

[9] H. Haas, “Wireless data from every light bulb,” 2011. https://www.ted.com/talks/harald_haas_wireless_data_from_every_light_bulb?language=en (accessed Oct. 03, 2020).

[10] “Q&A: Wi-fi health concerns,” 2007. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6677051.stm (accessed Oct. 03, 2020).

[11] Lifi.co, “Why LiFi is more secure than WiFi,” [Online]. Available: https://lifi.co/why-lifi-is-more-secure-than-wifi.

[12] Lifi.co, “LiFi Companies.” https://lifi.co/lifi-companies (accessed Oct. 03, 2020).

[13] Global Market Insights, “Li-Fi Market Size,” 2020. https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/lifi-market (accessed Oct. 03, 2020).

[14] LaserFocusWorld, “Mexico commercializes optical wireless (Li-Fi) technology.” https://www.laserfocusworld.com/lasers-sources/article/16558786/mexico-commercializes-optical-wireless-lifi-technology (accessed Oct. 03, 2020).