Tiny LED light bulbs, currently in development, could deliver Wi-Fi-like internet communications, whilst also displaying information and providing illumination, all at the same time.
Indeed, over the next four years with Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council funding, a number of UK universities - led by the University of Strathclyde - will be working on this innovative technology.
It is hoped this will unleash the full potential of so-called Li-Fi, which is the transmission of internet communications using visible light rather than the radio waves and microwaves that are currently used.
While many homeowners already have LED bathroom light fittings in their houses, this technology could encourage wider use of the technology.
Although the potential possibilities of Li-Fi are already being explored around the world, this project is pursuing a radical vision that, it is hoped, could deliver enormous benefits.
The system works as LED lights flicker on and off thousands of times a second. By being able to alter the length of the flickers, it is possible to send digital information to specially adapted PCs and other electronic devices.
This would make the visible part of the electromagnetic spectrum available for internet communications.
Professor Martin Dawson, of the University of Strathclyde and leader of the project, said the universities of Cambridge, Edinburgh, Oxford and St Andrews are all working on this.
He believes this wide-ranging expertise will help to tackle the many obstacles involved in making this vision a reality.
"Imagine an LED array beside a motorway helping to light the road, displaying the latest traffic updates and transmitting internet information wirelessly to passengers' laptops, netbooks and smartphones," the expert continued.
"This is the kind of extraordinary, energy-saving parallelism that we believe our pioneering technology could deliver."
LED lights are also being used as a mapping service that could be more effective than Wi-Fi.
Indeed, ByteLight is a new type of location technology that uses LED bulbs to deliver exact location information to people that are indoors.
