For what a world it would be if we could all access the internet not through clunky wireless routers and the millions of miles of spaghetti-like cables buried under our streets and fields, but through the golden rays of the electric light bulbs that are in every room in every one of our homes.
Scientists working at Edinburgh University have discovered a way of transmitting wireless data through lightbulbs, an invention that could revolutionise the way we receive the internet.
The discovery is called D-Light (data light) and uses the new light-emitting diode (LED) bulbs that are expected to replace the incandescent models in use. The traditional bulb is banned in parts of the EU due to its wasteful use of energy.
As well as revolutionising internet reception, it would put an end to the potentially harmful electromagnetic pollution emitted by wireless internet routers and has raised the prospect of ubiquitous wireless access, transmitted through streetlights.
The idea is so significant that a Nobel prize-winning physicist has named it among the 100 inventions likely to change everyday life in the next century.
Dr Harald Haas, reader in wireless communications at Edinburgh University, is leading the project.
He claimed the invention could soon be in use all over the world, bringing significant economic benefits to Scotland – and reaffirming the country’s position as one of the world’s leading nations when it comes to scientific innovation.
Dr Haas said: “Engineering and development have, in my opinion, been left out in this country for too long. Lord Mandelson has recently put forward his idea for the digital economy but it needs to be filled with life. This could be one pillar to that economy.
“It should be so cheap that it’s everywhere. Using the visible light spectrum, which comes for free, you can piggy-back existing wireless services on the back of lighting equipment. Power lines are there, which can transmit data, so all you need is a central modem, which would then distribute data into the lightbulbs and then to mobile devices in the home.”
The invention allows data to be transmitted through light, using flickering – imperceptible to the human eye – to send 100 megabits of data a second. That is twice as fast as current wireless routers and matches the speed of the broadband network which could get up to 100 megabits per second by 2017.
At that speed a file of an entire movie could be sent through a lightbulb in only a few minutes. But Dr Haas hopes to be able to send one gigabit a second, which is more than 10 times the speed the network can currently manage.
Wireless communication is a sector growing at an exponential rate, but the infrastructure is struggling to keep up.
The advent of devices such as the iPhone, which allows the reception of multimedia content, meant that much more bandwidth was being used than by ordinary phones. Today there is not enough space to send all the data.
Yet if data was piped through lightbulbs, it would solve this tricky problem.
The other benefit of the new system is that it is cheap enough to be fitted everywhere. This would have security benefits, as terrorists would not be able to knock out vital internet access because almost every streetlight could send data.
Dr Haas is working with a leading aircraft manufacturer to develop the technology for use in planes, where wireless technology is banned for fear of interfering with the flight instruments.
Scottish Enterprise are backing the development of the new technology through Proof of Concept funding. There will be a prototype built next year.
After the initial tests, a spin-off company will be formed to produce it.
The idea has won high-profile supporters. Dr Haas said that Nobel prize laureate, physics professor Theodor Wolfgang Hänsch, from Germany, was asked by the Ferderal government to find the ideas that could transform our everyday life and put them into a book.
“He chose my visible light communication as one of those ideas,” Dr Haas added.
