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Meet LiFi: The New Tech Delivering High-Speed Internet Using Light
The cutting-edge innovation offers low latency, stable streaming, and doesn’t force users to compromise with bandwidth.
Looking for faster internet than Wi-Fi? Enter LiFi, a groundbreaking technology launched by pureLiFi, a UK-based company, at the Mobile World Congress (MWC 2024) in Barcelona. This innovative approach to wireless communication utilizes light, offering users low latency and congestion-free experiences for gaming, video conferencing, and media streaming.
Unlike traditional methods like Wi-Fi and 5G, LiFi transmits data wirelessly through light, circumventing common issues such as buffering and signal vulnerability. Ron Schaeffer, pureLiFi’s chief strategy officer, highlighted LiFi’s ease of use and lack of congestion compared to traditional Wi-Fi.
“Just like Wi-Fi access points people have, it is also a plug-and-play. People can plug into a network, and within a few seconds, you have LiFi,” explained Schaeffer.
“Importantly, it is not subject to congestion like Wi-Fi is. Everyone who would be connected to LiFi will have full bandwidth. For instance, if you are watching a video, someone is on a video call and another person is playing a VR game, you all are competing for Wi-Fi bandwidth. With LiFi, everyone has their own bandwidth. You can take off the Wi-Fi network and put it onto LiFi; the internet experience also improves because it is less congested. So, we say LiFi makes Wi-Fi better,” the Chief Strategy Officer added.
LiFi boasts impressive capabilities, transmitting and receiving 1GB of data per second in each direction, covering an area of up to 50 square meters. Its inherent security benefits, stemming from its inability to pass through walls, make it particularly interesting to security-conscious users.
Also Read: Getting Started With Google Gemini: A Beginner’s Guide
pureLiFi plans to collaborate with telecom providers to deploy its devices in homes and offices. Schaeffer emphasized the company’s potential to revolutionize internet connectivity, citing its vast spectrum availability compared to radio frequencies.
Alistair Banham, CEO of pureLiFi, expressed excitement about LiFi’s ability to address current and future connectivity challenges, including the release of light antennas for various devices: “LiFi is now ready to augment and extend other wireless technologies ushering in a new era of bandwidth, speed and reliable communications,” he said.
News
Visa’s Return To Syria Starts With A Test And A Bank In Lebanon
Foreign visitors will be the first users to benefit, but whether Syria’s own banks and cardholders follow is still an open question.
Visa is returning to Syria. Its first live international card transaction in the country was a test rather than a launch, and the milestone event ran through a Lebanese bank.
The acquirer (the bank on the merchant’s side of a card payment) was Fransabank Lebanon, with Paymera as the other named partner. Nadim Moujaes, who heads a Fransabank Group subsidiary, describes the test as both the culmination of “longstanding efforts to link Syria back to international payment networks” and “the first step in a larger path”.
Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa makes the first electronic payment in Syria using a @Visa card at a store in Damascus, following the lifting of US sanctions on Syria. pic.twitter.com/lpAN7nQ6Fc
— Tech Magazine (@TechMGZN) August 27, 2026
“We are excited to have successfully tested live transactions today as we plan to enable international visitors to use their Visa cards while in Syria,” says Leila Serhan, Visa’s senior vice president and group country manager for the North Africa, Levant and Pakistan region. Although a significant first step, that plan doesn’t come with a hard date for when a visitor’s card will work normally.
Mohammed Safwat Raslan, governor of the Central Bank of Syria, says the test paves the way for international card acceptance in Syria and that maintaining strong compliance, risk management and operational controls will remain essential. Serhan likewise stresses that Visa has worked within applicable legal, regulatory and compliance requirements. For a test transaction, it seems there was a great deal of attention paid to the rules, with the entire operation being carefully managed.
Also Read: Lebanon’s 5G Era Begins With 150 Stations And A $1M Budget
The test is the latest step in a sequence that began in December 2025, when Visa announced a strategic roadmap to support Syria’s integration into the global digital economy. In February 2026 it hosted its first industry gathering of banks, ecosystem partners and policymakers in Damascus and, the same month, signed an agreement with Syria’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology in San Francisco.
Michel Kattouah, Paymera’s CEO, called the test “the return of international card acceptance,” but while that’s positive news, there’s no word yet on when a Syrian bank will issue a Visa card to a Syrian customer.
Visa’s Return To Syria Starts With A Test And A Bank In Lebanon
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