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40Gbit WiFi with Infrared light and never congested.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE HERE: https://www.tue.nl/onderzoek/research-centers/institute-for-photonic-integration/nieuws/17-03-2017-wifi-met-lichtstralen-meer-dan-40-gbits-en-nooit-overbelast/ (in Dutch)

 

Translation: 

 

Nothing is more agonising as slow WiFi. As the amount of Wireless devices increases, the network gets more congested. Researchers from the "Technische Universiteit Eindhoven" have come up with a new solution: a wireless network based on harmless, Infrared radio-waves. The capacity is not only huge (40 Gigabit per second), it doesn't have to be shared, because every client is receiving its own "lightray". TU/e researcher Joanne Oh was promoted 'cum laude' on this subject.

 

The method, invented at TU/e, is simple and in reason cheap. Wireless communication derives from a few central 'light antennas', for example put on the ceiling. These antennas, connected by fiber optic cable, can beam lightrays very accurately. This is done without any moving parts, so free from maintenance and without the use of power. Inside the antennas is a grating, wich sends those lightrays of different wavelenghts in multiple angles (passive diffraction gratings).

By changing the light frequency, the direction of the lightray changes. By making use of the harmless infrared spectrum that cannot reach the retina of your eye, it is a safe technique.

 

No interference

 

When you, as a user, walk around and your smartphone or tablet loses sight of a lightantenna, a different lightantenna takes over. The network keeps track of the exact location of all wireless devices, by means of the radio-signal they send back. Adding more devices is simple: they receive from the same antennas, but on different light-wave-lenghts. The devices don't have to share the total capacity and there is no more interference with the neighbours.

 

Data-capacity of lightrays

 

Today, WiFi is making use of radio-signals, in the frequency of 2.4 or 5 gigahertz. The method, invented in Eindhoven, uses infrared light with frequencies many thousand times higher, about 200 terahertz. Wich means the data capacity of lightrays is much higher. Joanne Oh reached up to 42.8Gbit/s at 2.5 meter distance. By comparison: the average connectionspeed in The Netherlands is 2000 times slower (17.6Mbit/s). Those who have a top notch WiFi installation still can't reach more then 300Mbit/sec in total, about 100 times less then the speed reached  in the research. The system only used lightsignals for the downstream, to upstream it still used radiowaves, because not as much capacity is needed for upload.

 

Behind the light-antennas

 

The work of the newly promoted Oh is part of a larger project called BROWSE, led by broadbandtechnology professor Ton Kroonen, with the financial support of the European Research Council. Joanne Oh specifically worked on the technology of datatransmission by pointable infrared beams. Other promovendi are working on the technique of accuratly keeping track of where all wireless devices are, and the central fiber optic cabling behind the antennas. Koonen expects that it will certainly take another 5 years before the technology is available in the shops. He believes that clients with a high datarate consumption like videoscreens, laptops or tablets will be the first to be connected to this new kind of wireless net.

 

Many devices simultaneously (via google translate:)

 

The group of Koonen is not the only one working on 'indoor optical wireless networks. Globally, inter alia, examined for any other universities and research institutes or it is possible to transmit data via the LED lighting room. However, the disadvantage is that the bandwidth is not high, and has to be divided again by the connected devices. Some other groups investigating network concepts in which infrared rays are directed with movable mirrors. However, the disadvantage is that this active control of the current mirrors and requires, and that can treat each mirror is only one optical signal at a time. The gratings Koonen Oh and use, many light rays and thus simultaneously devices.

The work of Oh and Koonen falls within the Institute for Photonic Integration of the TU / e. This is one of the world's leading research centers in the field of 'photonics'; the use of light (photons) instead of electricity (electrons) to transmit data.

 

 

 

I'm Belgian, this is research from The netherlands


 

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ive found that wifi is never slow, but my internet access itself is slow.

thing is, im using ac since 2014 and have been using dual band n since 2009

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138 is a good number.

 

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Like tipers said most peoples' bottleneck is their "fibre"/phone lines unless you have a high bandwidth local use then great!

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What are you looking for?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Yeah cool thx.. But WiFi isn't my bottleneck. My shitty isp is and the infrastructure in my town. 

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ISP mono/duo-poloies are the main problem but of course nothing is going to be done about that, because competition is good but only when they say so -.-

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I doubt that this new wifi won't be ready for primetime soon. I don't think there are devices that are compatible at the moment. Besides, just as @themctipers said, the problem most of the time is the Internet service provider, not the wifi router. Will this new IR wifi have the same features of 802.11 ac such as beamforming and MIMO antennas? I hope so. Even my 20 mbps fiber connection can occasionally get slow and I don't think it has anything to do with wifi or my router. 

IMG_5291.PNG

 

 

 

Although with innovations like this, I expect naysayers especially in this forum. 

 

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50 minutes ago, huilun02 said:

How many 'light antennas'  this thing gonna need? What if I'm using my mobile device lying on my back? What if I'm in the toilet? These line of sight based systems are too inelegant and most people have no need for such speeds. 

You would have dual connections on devices for that, so if your in a black-spot you revert to a more traditional network medium. Upload uses traditional signal anyway.

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12 hours ago, themctipers said:

ive found that wifi is never slow, but my internet access itself is slow.

thing is, im using ac since 2014 and have been using dual band n since 2009

Agreed. A properly set up AC wifi network will have 90% of the speed of wired connection in my experience.

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2 minutes ago, hey_yo_ said:

Although with innovations like this, I expect naysayers especially in this forum. 

I'm not going to necessarily be a nay-sayer but just a realist with this tech, at least for now.

40Gbit transceivers alone are pretty damn expensive. You can only get 40Gbit over copper up to about 7 meters so most people will need fiber in the home to handle this and not just regular fiber but OM3 or OM4 fiber which is very expensive as well.

 

I am hopeful however that if/when this becomes a mainstream option though that the prices will have dropped significantly so my previous points will be moot. :)

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2 minutes ago, hey_yo_ said:

Will this new IR wifi have the same features of 802.11 ac such as beamforming and MIMO antennas? I hope so.

Those are for radio waves, you wouldn't need breamforming for this. Beamforming is used to focus an omnidirectional radio signal towards a client, these IR signals simply don't need that.

 

MIMO could be used but that is for speed and singal quality, again things IR doesn't really need.

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How does this compare to Li-Fi or are they the same thing?

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42 minutes ago, Qwertious said:

How does this compare to Li-Fi or are they the same thing?

Similar in the way that it uses photons instead of the classical radio waves or electrons. It's different because of the grating wich simultanously can provide full bandwith on various frequencies on multiple devices, where Li-Fi only shares the same 'light'.

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Don't care for WiFi but what I do mainly is my town infrastructure to move on with fiber.

All this 5G (with of course shitty caps) and future WiFi yet fiber infrastructure is barely moving at all. Pft.

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22 hours ago, Belgiangurista said:

'cum laude'

Well, I wouldn't want to cum quietly.

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Infrared use to be a legitimate thing for laptops I've got a couple that connect to each other via infrared and to the network presumably (never tested that) We went away from it for the reason that line of sight is super inconvenient and people really didn't use the connection to beam to other devices often,  But it still has it's niche use cases. 

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24 minutes ago, zMeul said:

is it full-duplex? cool if it is; if it isn't ... meh

No it uses IR for downloading and all uploading is done on normal radio/wifi. Which is fine for most things since people download at an extremely higher proportion than they do upload but it does limit the usefulness of this technology.

 

On 3/18/2017 at 0:51 PM, Belgiangurista said:

The system only used lightsignals for the downstream, to upstream it still used radiowaves, because not as much capacity is needed for upload.

 

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