Is lifi a pointless convenience?

Networking
1

Lifi has been a hot topic lately, but I can't seem to get to jazzed up over it. Even if you can transfer data at 10gb/s, or whatever, that isnt gonna make your download speeds any quicker. I'm no expert, by any means, but when I'm downloading something the data is going to be relayed from one place to another before it gets to me. The entire trip from there to my home isn't going to be all layed out in top notch fiber. At some point it's gonna hit a bottle neck, or several, so it l just end up going at practically the same speed. The only use for that super fast data rate is to send data from one machine to another within the same home/office network. From what I understand anyway.

If I'm wrong, which I hope I am, can someone fill me in?

2

That sort of speed is more useful for a large network servicing many clients. Like a public wireless network.

3

Well, couple of things.

First, there are quite a few reasons to have local networking that performs quickly. Gaming with local friends comes to mind, as does having your own file server to keep things like movies or project files or just archived stuff off your personal PC's drives, and also on-site backups.

In short, there are plenty of reasons to have a fast LAN, and LIFI would make that more convenient. Because who likes running ethernet everywhere?

First-point-five: Honest answer: I do. I may be paranoid, but I prefer to trust in physical connections. They're harder to take advantage of, by Eve or Mallory or whatever your preferred metaphor may be. (Admittedly most of them are crafted with the Internet in mind).

Secondly, @Dexter_Kane is quite correct in his suggestion. If you are the kind of person who likes to work at the local coffeeshop, LIFI will mean a lot more to you than I. They're already paying for the best service to the Internet that they can get -- which you may not want for cost reasons or maybe it's only available to businesses from your preferred local ISP.

Third, and last, we are (agonizingly slowly) upgrading to a better state. Google Fiber is a great indication of this, and although it's only gigabit, it's a good gauge of the market. If Google thinks they can sell gigabit service for $70/month in cities, that's a very good indication that at least some of the big names in the tech market are finally coming around to the idea that faster internet can be sufficiently profitable.

It's like Logan has said multiple times about .... er, I've never lived in Kentucky, was it Nashville? ... that they have seen a massive growth in small businesses and in their economy after an ISP there started to shape things up. I forget the details, I find Kentucky boring. You see the point anyway, I assume.

(Note that I know next to nothing about the European markets. I'm aware the situation in Canada is nearly as bad as the US, but that's as far as my international knowledge of ISPs goes.)

Shout at the ISPs some more, and maybe more usefulness will come to things like LIFI and CAT6. And whatever is going to replace CAT6, of course. But, in the meantime, yes, I do think there's plenty of reason for these things. Just not as much as there could/should be.

4

Thanks for the responce, guys.
I agree that lifi is at its best in a home network/lan party.

But I still stand by what I said. Theres no reason to exited over it. Gaming doesn't need large transfer rate, it just needs better latency. Lan parties are the epitome of good latency as it is, so that's not a viable reason. The only use for gaming too have is for the present boom of in home game streaming. With all that extra speed you could be able to stream 4k resolutions at any frame rate. At best this can be used in small pffices, or home pffices. Maybe a small group are making a game and they keep their files in their private server. Theyd be able to put in and pull out files in a flash with lifi.

5

I don't really see the point of it to be honest. Maybe on a large scale like a huge public network by embedding it in to street lights or something. But it's not going to replace a home wifi network as it needs line of sight. Any sort of high bandwidth link that you'd need between two hosts will be done with cable, not some wireless technology that stops working as soon as someone walks in front of the light sensor.

I'd be really interested to hear what the actual applications are but I think the speed is really irrelevant to the whole thing and more just a side effect of using visible light (which is a higher frequency than the usual microwaves)

1 Like
6

Actually one use I can think of is as an alternative to FTTH. Instead of running fiber to everyone on a street you run it to a lifi transmitter on a tower in the middle of the street, then everyone connects to it with a lifi device on their roof, so everyone can have gigabit internet. It's much cheaper than running fiber last mile and much faster than other wireless technologies. Although I doubt it would do well in heavy rain.

7

Could be very useful if you have a SAN and many servers. Would be nice for render farms.

1 Like