While 5G will undoubtedly do wonders for the massive amount of anticipated electronic devices in the next few years, the transmission speeds of its radio frequency-based wireless mobile technologies are limited by the available regulated RF spectrum.
Because of this, optical communications technology will remain a crucial counterpart to wireless RF, as considerable advancements in optical system capacity, network reach, and user base size make it an attractive commercial solution. Optical wireless communication (OWC) systems are attractive as a broadband access technology due to their high speeds, capacity, and the cost-effectiveness of meeting bandwidth requirements of different services and applications of next-generation networks. Optical wireless communications can also serve as an alternative or complementary technology for current wireless RF solutions.
OWCs’ applications range from broadband services to space missions, where their high bandwidth capacity enables scientists to send much more data to Earth than possible through RF. Also, the optical communications spectrum has not been regulated, so those creating technology with it don’t need to worry about available allocations. Last but not least, OWCs are considerably smaller, lighter, and consume less power than RF packages.