LED lights may be the future of broadband

BERLIN, March 10 (UPI) -- German scientists say they've created a data connection that uses light produced by lamps to encode a wireless broadband signal.

The researchers, led by Jelena Vucic of the Fraunhofer Institute for Telecommunications at the Heinrich-Hertz-Institute in Berlin, say getting a broadband connection might be as simple as turning on a lamp.

Currently, most wireless connections are achieved through a radio-frequency WiFi connection. But the scientists say WiFi has limited bandwidth, and it's unclear where to find more in the already-crowded radio spectrum. By contrast, they say visible-frequency wireless has all the bandwidth one could want.

The new technology utilizes a signal generated by slightly flickering all of the lights in a room in unison at a rate millions of times faster than a human eye can see. Since visible light can't go through walls as do radio waves, there would be no interference from stray signals and less worry of outside hackers.

Because incandescent and fluorescent bulbs can't flicker fast enough, the scientists said all the lights would have to be LEDs. Although commercial LEDs have a limited bandwidth, Vucic and her colleagues said they increased the bandwidth 10-fold by eliminating all but the blue part of the LED spectrum.

The research will be presented in San Diego March 21-25 during the Optical Fiber Communication Conference and Exposition/National Fiber Optic Engineers Conference.