File photo: The innumerable LED lights in Beijing, capital of China, captured on September 2, 2015

China has made a new breakthrough in Visible Light Communication (VLC), elevating the real-time traffic rate to 50 gigabytes per second, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology confirmed on November 13, 2015. A HD Hollywood movie can be downloaded at this speed in 0.2 seconds, using merely lamp light.

China has been dedicating intellectual and material resources to the development of VLC system. Using LED light as media for transmission, this futuristic technology realizes “where there is light, there is Internet”. It takes up almost of zero energy consumption, making it the greenest communication method the world has ever seen.

According to IT expert and academic Wu Jiangxing, it will be possible to establish a huge VLC network based on the billions of bulbs and LED lighting facilities already around the globe.

“Every bulb can serve as a high-speed Internet access point (similar to a WIFI hotspot ) after VLC technology is widely applied in the future," said Wu. "Imagine downloading several movies while you are waiting for a green light at a crossroad or surfing the Internet on planes and high-speed trains via the lights."

It is estimated that in the next ten years, wired transmission will no longer be able to bear the huge amount of information load, and that is where wireless technology comes into play. Its broad application aspects will see the rise of a new trillion-worth industry.