Vibrint, pureLiFi form networking tech partnership

Through a new alliance, Vibrint will bring new secure wireless networking capabilities to defense and intelligence agencies where traditional WiFi is too vulnerable.

Intelligence agencies don’t use WiFi inside their secure facilities because it relies on radio frequencies to transmit data and information. Those frequencies can penetrate walls where adversaries can intercept them.

In a push to address this problem, Vibrint is teaming with pureLiFi to bring a solution that uses light waves waves to transmit data. See the video below for an explanation of how the technology works.

The companies announced a new offering Wednesday that they call Vibrint LiFi, which will be based on pureLiFi’s technology.

“This is one of the reasons we stood up Vibrint – to find really game-changing technologies in the commercial world and accelerate those into the national security space,” Vibrint's chief executive Tom Lash told me.

Vibrint was created in the spring of 2023 through the merger of Engineering Solutions and Meadowgate. They operated under separate names until the Vibrint name was unveiled in November.

“WiFi has issues when we talk about national security applications,” Lash said. “There are unintended consequences such as penetrating walls. You want to contain signals.”

LiFi uses the light spectrum to transmit data. Not only does it not pass through walls but it also can’t be detected, pureLiFi's CEO Alistair Banham said.

“There is no electromagnetic deduction footprint, so it doesn’t radiate as RF does,” Banham said.

LiFi also is capable of carrying more data. A lot more. Bahnam said that LiFi creates 2,600 times the bandwidth of traditional WiFi and there is no degradation when there are multiple users.

“This is the ideal technology for secure communications,” Banham said.

A building can be outfitted with LiFi light antennas so users can share data and collaborate with other people in the building over a secure LiFi network, Lash said.

Vibrint also is looking at LiFi as a way of adding flexibility to what defense and intelligence customers can have. That way, they don’t have to rely on a fixed infrastructure or introduce vulnerabilities by using traditional WiFi.

“We think this is a natural extension of other communications media such as satellite communications,” Lash said.

The companies also see the technology as fitting fwith Defense Department initiatives such as the Joint All Domain Command and Control program that wants to bring a network-centric architecture to soldiers.

PureLiFi is a global leader in LiFi and is already working with some defense customers, but Banham said the partnership with Vibrint will bring its technology to the intelligence community.

“This is part of our journey to become more pervasive and to drive the technology into a new set of customers,” Banham said. “That is what Vibrint gives us.”

National security customers today don’t realize the full benefits of wireless networking today, Lash said.

“This technology will let them open up a whole new host of ways to operate with their data and collaborate with partners that they just have not had to date,” Lash said.

The Vibrint LiFi offering includes a laptop powered by pureLiFi. as well as pureLiFi’s Kitefin tactical LiFi system and pureLiFi’s Cube gateway.

"Vibrint's commitment to innovation aligns seamlessly with our vision for the future of wireless communication,” Banham said.

Below is a pureLiFi-produced video that explains the concept of LiFi.