Internet 100 times faster than wi-fi may soon be available with revolutionary wireless technology from a lamp. Li-fi, short for light fidelity, has been demonstrated by French start-up Oledcomm at the world’s biggest mobile fair, Mobile World Congress, in Barcelona. As soon as a smartphone was placed under an office lamp, it started playing a video.
The technology uses the frequencies generated by LED bulbs, which flicker on and off imperceptibly thousands of times a second, to beam information through the air, leading it to be dubbed the digital equivalent of Morse Code. The bulbs are outfitted with a microchip, turning them into a hotspot. The big advantage of li-fi is its lightning speed. It has also been tested in Belgium, Estonia and India.