I have sometimes thought that LiFi (https://lifi.co/) would suddenly come out of the woodwork, and we would be networking over that through the household.
I think the wishful thinking is "coming from woodwork" vs coming from the current and near future state of engineering. Engineering comes from humans solving problems who typically get paid to do so.
FiWi would leverage SFP tech. The Fi side of FiWi comes from mass NRE investments into the data center networks. The Wi side from mass investment into billions of mobile phones. Leveraging WiFi & SFP parts is critical to success as semiconductors are a by-the-pound business. I think a 1X25G VCSEL SFP, which is tolerant to dust over MMF, has a retail price of $40 today. The sweet spot for DC SFP today is driven by 1x100Gb/s serdes and I suspect angel investors are trying to improve the power significantly of the attached lasers. It's been said that one order of improvement in lowering laser power gives multiple orders of laser MTBF improvements. So lasers, SERDES & CMOS radios are not static and will constantly improve year to year per thousands of engineers working on them today, tomorrow & on.
The important parts of FiWi have to be pluggable - just like a light bulb is. The socket and wiring last (a la the fiber and antennas) - we just swap a bulb if it burns out, if we want a different color, if we want a higher foot candle rating, etc. This allows engineering cadences to match market cadences and pays staffs. Most engineers don't like to wait decades between releases so-to-speak and don't like feast & famine lifestyles. Moore's law was and is about human cadences too.
I don't see any engineering NRE that LiFi could leverage. Sounds cool though.
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