The Institute of Electronic and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) has released a standard for Li-Fi to provide a global framework for the deployment of the wireless technology.
By harnessing the light spectrum, Li-Fi can unleash faster, more reliable wireless communications compared to conventional technologies such as WiFi and 5G.
The Light Communications 802.11bb Task Group was formed in 2018 chaired by pureLiFi and supported by Fraunhofer HHI. The IEEE 802.11bb Light Communication Global standard, referred to as Li-Fi, describes the necessary changes to physical layers and the medium access control layer (MAC) to allow 802.11 wireless networking via light source modulation that people can't see.
The Li-Fi spec calls for bidirectional transmission in the 800nm to 1,000nm band of the electromagnetic spectrum, with a minimum throughput of 10 Mb/s and a maximum of 9.6 Gb/s at the MAC data service access point.
Richard Webb, director of network infrastructure with CCS Insight, said the 802.11bb standard is an important milestone for Li-Fi, placing it as a complementary and integrated technology alongside Wi-Fi. Nikola Serafimovski, VP of standardisation at pureLiFi and chair of the 802.1bb task group, added that Li-Fi had attracted interest from semiconductor companies and mobile phone manufacturers.
pic: DTU