ITinfo: New Lightbulb Plays Havoc with Wireless Networks

I See The Networks Down

Shining a bright light on network outages

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New Lightbulb Plays Havoc with Wireless Networks

by Dave Murphy
ISSN 1535-3613

Fusion Lighting, a Rockville, Maryland-based company, has designed a new lightbulb that uses radio frequency energy to generate a bright glob from a gas enclosed in glass. The new light technology is energy efficient, and it may replace traditional bulbs for organizations and homes that are looking to reduce operating costs through the adoption of new technology.

This sounds good for the operating budgets and the environment; however, the radio signals used to excite the gas are in the same spectrum as popular 802.11b (Wi-Fi) wireless networks. And moreover, Wi-Fi networks located in one building can be affected by a Fusion Lighting bulb that's up to a half mile away. The networking problem may not be readily apparent, either, because Wi-Fi networks operate a different bandwidths, ranging from 2Mbps to 11Mbps, at the slower bandwidths, the networks and lighting fixtures can co-exist, so network administrators may have a difficult time figuring out the cause of their slower (but not fully inoperable) networks because there are other alternatives that can cause wireless bandwidth degradation.

The lightbulbs don't affect 802.11a wireless networks because they operate in a different frequency spectrum. It's known yet if the new 802.11g networks will be affected by the lightbulbs; however, it seems to me that they will because they are more similar to the 802.11b spectrum.

Dave's Opinion

The cost of lighting is a significant expense to all businesses, and most homeowners know to turn off the lights in rooms that will be unoccupied. I'll wager that commercial operations will embrace lower-cost lighting alternatives for new construction as soon as it's available, and many building designers aren't also computer geeks, so I hope you IT folks will share this information with your facilities department so they don't cut the budget and the network at the same time.

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References

Fusion Lighting
Message Center

Damar Group, Ltd. helps business use technology.

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updated June 19, 2002
http://dgl.com/itinfo/2002/it020619.html