![[article image]](https://cacm.acm.org/system/assets/0003/7489/061520_KAUST_Xavier_Pita_Aqua-Fi.large.jpg?1592244313&1592244313 "Artist's conception of a diver using the Aqua-Fi system.")
Researchers at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia built an underwater Wi-Fi system that could enable divers to transmit footage from underwater to the surface instantly by sending data through light beams.
Researchers tested the Aqua-Fi system by simultaneously uploading and downloading multimedia between two computers located a few meters apart in static water, recording a maximum data transfer speed of 2.11 megabytes per second.
The goal is to use radio waves to send data from a diver's smartphone to a "gateway" device attached to their gear, which would then send the data via a light beam to a computer at the surface connected to the Internet via satellite.
Said King Abdullah University’s Basem Shihada, “This is the first time anyone has used the Internet underwater completely wirelessly.”
From KAUST Discovery
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