German Scientists' Visible Light Network Hits 3Gbps

Mark.JUK writes "Scientists working at Berlin's Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute have developed new components that can turn standard 'off-the-shelf' LED room lights into an Optical Wireless Local Area Network (OWLAN) that delivers data transmission rates of up to 3Gbps. The new kit is an extension of HHI's earlier work, which in 2011 delivered the first 800Mbps capable network using ordinary flashing LED lights. Since then the kit has been improved to achieve a transmission rate of 1Gbps per single light frequency (basic LEDs usually use up to three light frequencies) and the operating bandwidth has been pushed to 180MHz from 30MHz."

sounds overly optimistic

[Anonymous Coward]

"basic LEDs usually use up to three light frequencies" is BS. Nobody uses RGB for room lighting - color reproduction is not good enough. You use blue LEDs + photoluminescent phosphors. I wonder whether they can also mudulate the phosphors at 1 Gbps, but I doubt so.

Re:Pre-existing technology

[ColdWetDog]

Maybe because he's pushing several orders of magnitude more data through the system than your 20 khz headphones?

Size matters.

Re:How does it work through walls?

[Dthief]

FTA: The cheap LEDs, which could for example be placed on the ceiling or in room lights and tend to have coverage of around 10 meters, essentially blink on and off extremely fast to transmit the data (not visible to your naked eye). This would make it extremely useful for short range and high-speed networks that may also require something more secure than wifi (i.e. light doesn’t travel so well through solid walls etc.). So it IS the room lighting, and yes, it is not meant for long range wireless. But you could link everything in a room to it.