Lifi Leader Warns of RF Spectrum 'Crunch'

EDINBURGH, Scotland, February 29, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Visible light spectrum enables exponential growth in future data rates

LiFi transformational to Internet of Things, Industry 4.0 and 5G

pureLiFi solving LiFi networking and mobile integration

pureLiFi, the light communications technology company that leads the market in research and commercialisation of LiFi, has warned that advances in the Internet of Things (IoT) and 5G are likely to be held back by the looming radio frequency (RF) spectrum 'crunch'. LiFi benefits from a source that is 1000 times larger than the entire 300 GHz of RF spectrum and 600,000 larger than a 60 GHz WiFi/WiGig channel that, in turn, enables a huge exponential growth in future data rates and the advancement of IoT, Industry 4.0 and 5G.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20151125/290959LOGO )

While WiGig delivers 7 Gbps, industry research predicts we will need access points that can deliver 53 Gbps by 2020 and over 800 Gbps by 2025 (this would require at least 1/5 of the entire 300 GHz radio spectrum which already is mostly occupied by commercial and defence applications). Moreover, LiFi allows significantly more access points than RF and WiGig, achieving the higher data rates necessary for the entire IoT in large part due to an ability to produce small cells necessary for faster data rates - as opposed to RF where interference is a major problem when it comes to 5G and the 5 metre cell radius required.

The high performance LiFi optical attocell network being developed by pureLiFi can achieve significantly higher data rates in dense environments compared to multicellular RF networks and incorporates inherent data security characteristics. The company's latest LiFi dongle and LiFi access point (LiFi-X) were recently demonstrated at Mobile World Congress and mobile integration remains the primary focus on the product roadmap in 2016.

Professor Harald Haas, co-founder of pureLiFi, said: "If you look at the Internet of Things, traditional WiFi will be massively inefficient when there are so many devices interacting in one area. The networking ability to integrate with mobile is a groundbreaking development in LiFi, one that is characterised by the speed of data transfer and the continuing miniaturisation process."

pureLiFi invented, developed and commercialised the world's first full wireless LiFi networking system and has since developed a stream of next generation products. LiFi is a technology invented by Professor Haas based on visible light communication (VLC) that provides full networking capabilities similar to WiFi but with significantly greater spatial reuse of bandwidth.

- Cisco Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast
-Downlink Performance of Optical Attocell Networks
- pureLiFi (formerly known as pureVLC) is a light communications technology company formed in 2012 as a spin-out from the University of Edinburgh to create OEM components, including LiFi drivers and receivers.
- Follow pureLiFi on Twitter @purelifi

For further information:
Nick Freer
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