How light bulbs can be used for WiFi

Soon, the little light bulb may mean a great deal to netizens as it could be their cheap gateway to the Internet.

 

A team of Chinese scientists said it has successfully run tests using light bulbs to get computers online, China's state-run Xinhua News Agency reported.

 

"Wherever there is an LED lightbulb, there is an Internet signal. Turn off the light and there is no signal," it quoted Chi Nan, an information technology professor with Shanghai's Fudan University, as saying.

 

Li-Fi was first coined by Harald Haas from the University of Edinburgh in the UK in 2011. It refers to a visible light communication technology that delivers networked, mobile, high-speed communication similar to Wi-Fi.

 

ZDNet said Haas had suggested at the time that applications and capacity for data would be limitless, suggesting even car headlights can be used to transmit data.

 

Chi led a Li-Fi research team that included scientists from the Shanghai Institute of Technical Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

 

They are working on the principle of using light instead of radio frequencies as a signal carrier. The technology is aptly called Li-Fi (light fidelity) as opposed to Wi-Fi (wireless fidelity).

 

But Li-Fi, like all things that sound too good to be true, has a catch: if the light from the bulb is blocked, you get knocked offline.

 

"If the light is blocked, then the signal will be cut off," Chi said.

 

Also, she said related technology such as light communication controls as well as microchip design and manufacturing, are still in an experimental period.

 

Faster, cheaper

 

The researchers said a lightbulb with embedded microchips can send data as quickly as 150 megabits per second, faster than the average broadband connection in China.

 

It is also cost-effective, they said.

 

Potentially, there is a limitless number of lightbulbs that can be used for Li-Fi, as many Chinese are replacing old incandescent bulbs with LED lightbulbs quickly.

 

"As for cell phones, millions of base stations have been established around the world to strengthen the signal but most of the energy is consumed on their cooling systems. The energy utilization rate is only 5 percent," Chi noted.

 

The researchers plan to show off 10 sample Li-Fi kits at the China International Industry Fair that starts Nov. 5 in Shanghai. — TJD, GMA News