Li-Fi, as it has been dubbed, has already achieved blisteringly high speeds in the lab. Researchers at the Heinrich Hertz Institute in Berlin, Germany, have reached data rates of over 500 megabytes per second using a standard white-light LED. Haas has set up a spin-off firm to sell a consumer VLC transmitter that is due for launch next year. It is capable of transmitting data at 100 MB/s – faster than most UK broadband connections.

In July 2011, Dr. Harald Haas, Professor of Mobile Communications at the University of Edinburgh School of Engineering/Institute of Digital Communications, for the first time publically demonstrated Light Fidelity (Li-Fi), a method of Visible Light Communication (VLC) technology.