For anyone complaining about the Wi-Fi speed and lack of security, a new solution called Li-Fi has been found by researchers at the University of Oxford, who used light fidelity in order to achieve great bi-directional speeds that until now were unimaginable. The office tests made in Tallin, Estonia, achieved a speed of 1 GB per second, which is way faster compared to the Wi-Fi we currently use.

Wi-Fi has been a great solution so far, being the only way to access the internet and transmit data in a rapid and easy way, but since the amount of data is growing with every second that passes by, the need for a better and more efficient solution is getting stronger. Another problem related to Wi-Fi is that in the near future, there will be a limited number of free radio frequencies, which is expected to make the situation even worse. “By 2019, it is estimated that the world will be exchanging roughly 35 quintillion bytes of information each month. Because radio frequencies are already in use and heavily regulated, that data is going to struggle to find a spot in line. Wi-Fi is simply running out of space,” according to the World Economic Forum.

The forum suggests that what would be even better than Wi-Fi and Li-Fi, is a hybrid of the two, which will allow us to take the best of both technologies. Li-Fi will offer a more efficient and faster solution, but unlike Wi-Fi, Li-Fi’s viable light cannot penetrate solid objects, like walls walls for example, which is a good and bad thing depending on different users.

Since visible light has a greater spectrum compared to radio waves, it can allow us to transmit a bigger amount of data in a very short period of time. But data transmission does not work very well from one room to the other, or from one building to another, for example, which turns out as good news for all users that want a high discretion and protect their data.

Expert suggest that even though Li-Fi is way better than Wi-Fi, it will take some time for Li-Fi to be spread worldwide, which is probably not going to happen in the foreseeable future. Harold Haas, one of the pioneers of Li-Fi technology, said during a TED Talk that the Infrastructure for Li-Fi is already here. “All we need to do is fit a small microchip to every potential illumination device and this would then combine two basic functionalities: illumination and wireless data transmission,” Haas explained. “In the future we will not only have 14 billion light bulbs, we may have 14 billion Li-Fis deployed worldwide for a cleaner, greener and even a brighter future,” he added.