Wi-Fi? How About Li-Fi?

Harald Haas, inventor of li-fi, co-founder of pureLiFi

A start-up in Estonia is working on a technology that delivers internet access using light waves, as opposed to the radio waves currently being used. It is 100 times faster and could possibly be even faster than that. As it requires an LED light bulb and a standard solar cell, there are some shortcomings, such as it not working in direct sunlight or through solid, opaque surfaces like walls, but it doesn't interfere with radio signals, as wi-fi does: http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-34942685
   The idea of using light waves started with Professor Harald Haas, of Edinburgh University, who coined the term "li-fi" and showed that it could, indeed, work. As he points out, one of the advantages is that the same bulb and solar cell that are used for li-fi can continue their energy-gathering tasks. "What's really important here," he told his TED audience in September, "is that a solar cell has become a receiver for high-speed wireless signals encoded in light while it maintains its primary function as an energy-harvesting device. That's why it's possible to use existing solar cells on the roof of a hut to act as a broadband receiver from a laser station on a close-by hill, or indeed, lamp post."  Li-fi should be available to the public in the next three or four years, he says (video): https://www.ted.com/talks/harald_haas_a_breakthrough_new_kind_of_wireless_internet