QuantaDose Press Releases
MEMORANDUM FOR THE PRESIDENT
TO: The President of the United States
FROM: John Coates
SUBJECT: Securing American Technological Supremacy, Presidential Wellness, and Communications Sovereignty Through the White House Photonics Pilot
DATE: May/8/2026
Executive Recommendation
Mr. President,
I respectfully recommend that your administration establish The White House Photonics Pilot: a secure, reversible, measurement-based pilot program testing infrared Li‑Fi, optical wireless communications, Power-over-Ethernet lighting, environmental IoT sensors, hardwired backhaul, and low-RF room design in selected nonpublic areas of the White House complex.
The purpose is simple and strategic: protect the health, recovery, cognitive performance, and communications security of the Commander-in-Chief while restoring American leadership in the next generation of wireless technology.
This is not an anti-technology proposal. It is a pro-America, pro-innovation, pro-health, pro-security proposal.
The United States should not remain trapped in a 1996 wireless regulatory framework while other countries begin testing the future of light-based communications. The White House should lead the next era of secure, health-conscious, photonics-based connectivity.
I. The American Origin of Light-Based Wireless
In 1880, right here in Washington, D.C., Alexander Graham Bell demonstrated the world’s first wireless telephone transmission. He did not use radio waves. He transmitted voice over a beam of light.
From the top floor of the Franklin School on 13th Street, Bell’s system sent a wireless voice message over light to his laboratory at 1325 L Street. A plaque still commemorates that event as the first wireless telephone message in history. Bell called the photophone one of his greatest inventions.
Today, Bell’s light-based wireless vision is returning under a modern name: Li‑Fi, or light fidelity.
Li‑Fi and optical wireless communications transmit data using light rather than conventional radio-frequency signals. Modern systems increasingly use infrared light, enabling wireless connectivity through optical spectrum rather than congested microwave spectrum. The IEEE 802.11bb light-communications standard specifies operation over light in the 800 nm to 1000 nm band, with bidirectional throughput from 10 Mb/s to 9.6 Gb/s.
America invented this concept.
America should not lose it.
II. The Strategic Problem
The United States is trying to govern 21st-century wireless reality with a 20th-century regulatory structure.
Section 704 of the Telecommunications Act framework, codified at 47 U.S.C. § 332(c)(7), prevents state and local governments from regulating the placement, construction, or modification of personal wireless service facilities on the basis of the environmental effects of radio-frequency emissions, so long as those facilities comply with FCC regulations.
That framework was built in the Clinton era, before smartphones became ubiquitous, before whole-home Wi‑Fi, before wearable devices, before smart buildings, before 5G densification, before always-on wireless classrooms, and before the full toxicology record that now exists.
In 2021, the D.C. Circuit remanded the FCC’s decision to retain its RF exposure framework, holding that the agency failed to provide a reasoned explanation for its conclusion that the 1996 guidelines adequately protect against harmful effects unrelated to cancer. The court specifically required the FCC to address children, long-term exposure, wireless ubiquity, technological developments since 1996, and environmental impacts.
That means the current regulatory position is not a settled scientific victory. It is a legally challenged agency posture.
Regulatory inertia is not scientific consensus.
III. The Scientific Record Has Changed
The White House should not base national policy on fear. But it also should not ignore major federal, academic, and international toxicology evidence.
The U.S. National Toxicology Program found that high exposure to 900 MHz cellphone-type radio-frequency radiation was associated with clear evidence of malignant heart schwannomas in male rats, some evidence of malignant gliomas in male rats, and some evidence of adrenal-gland pheochromocytomas in male rats. NTP also reported RF-associated DNA damage in several tissues in follow-up work.
The Ramazzini Institute then performed a lifetime far-field exposure study designed to mimic environmental exposure from 1.8 GHz GSM base-station emissions. That study included 2,448 Sprague-Dawley rats exposed from prenatal life until natural death, making it the largest long-term rat study on RFR health effects. It reported a statistically significant increase in heart schwannomas in male rats at the highest exposure level.
A 2025 systematic review in Environment International, partially funded by the WHO radioprotection programme, reviewed 52 animal studies and judged the certainty of evidence as high for increased glioma risk and high for malignant heart schwannomas in male rats. The authors also noted that the two tumor types with high certainty in animals are the same tumor types identified with limited evidence in humans by the IARC Working Group, while cautioning that human-risk extrapolation remains complex.
A 2024 PLOS ONE targeted next-generation sequencing paper examined rat gliomas and cardiac schwannomas from the Ramazzini lifetime RFR study and compared genetic alterations against human cancer-relevant genes. The paper stated that rat gliomas from lifetime RFR exposure histologically resembled low-grade human gliomas and shared some genetic alterations with IDH1-wildtype human gliomas.
Most recently, a 2026 Environmental Health paper by Ronald L. Melnick, former National Toxicology Program scientist, and Joel M. Moskowitz applied EPA-style benchmark-dose methods to animal cancer and fertility data. The paper concluded that current FCC/ICNIRP whole-body limits for the general public are 15- to 900-fold higher than the authors’ cancer-risk-based estimates, depending on exposure duration, and 8- to 24-fold higher than levels they estimated would be protective of male reproductive health. The authors specifically recommended an independent re-evaluation of RF-EMF exposure limits using health-protective methodologies.
This is not fringe science.
This is NTP.
This is Ramazzini.
This is WHO-commissioned systematic review work.
This is EPA-style benchmark-dose risk assessment.
This is a federal court remand.
This is enough to justify presidential action.
The correct response is not panic.
The correct response is leadership.
IV. The Federal Posture Is Already Shifting
The United States has now completed its withdrawal from the World Health Organization, according to HHS, after the one-year process initiated by your January 2025 executive action. HHS stated that the United States will continue global health leadership through direct engagements, private-sector partnerships, NGOs, and health innovation.
At the same time, Reuters reported in January 2026 that HHS would launch a study on cellphone radiation and health research gaps, and that FDA had removed older webpages containing prior conclusions about cellphone radiation while the new review proceeded.
That creates a historic opening.
America can now lead an independent, science-forward, health-protective, innovation-driven wireless policy. The first step should not be another decade of hearings. The first step should be a concrete pilot inside the most important building in the country.
V. The International Signal: Other Countries Are Already Testing
This is not theoretical. NHS England recently documented a pilot by the North West Ambulance Service at Chester Ambulance Station testing Li‑Fi, IoT sensors, and Power-over-Ethernet lighting in an operational setting. The trial deployed IoT devices and PoE lighting across twelve areas of the station and Li‑Fi in one meeting room. It tested bin-level monitors, leak detection, temperature and humidity monitoring, air-quality sensors, and smart lighting controls.
The NHS trial showed clear value in IoT sensors and PoE lighting: automation of manual tasks, better environmental monitoring, expected energy savings, and operational efficiency. It also showed that current Li‑Fi hardware is not yet ready for general deployment because of external dongles, line-of-sight restrictions, limited hardware availability, retrofit challenges, and mobility limitations. NHS concluded that Li‑Fi was not mature enough for wider NHS use, while still identifying potential for static devices, new builds, RF-congested environments, and bespoke applications.
That is exactly why the White House should act now.
The lesson from the UK pilot is not “wait.”
The lesson is: start small, measure rigorously, identify the right use cases, and scale intelligently.
VI. The White House Photonics Pilot
I recommend that your administration authorize a 90- to 180-day White House Photonics Pilot in selected nonpublic areas of the White House complex.
The pilot should be supervised by the White House Communications Agency, the United States Secret Service, the White House Military Office, the General Services Administration, the White House Physician, the Office of Science and Technology Policy, NIST, NTIA, HHS, and appropriate Department of Defense technical experts.
The pilot should be designed as a secure, reversible, measured test — not as an immediate whole-building conversion.
Core Components
1. Baseline RF and Environmental Mapping
Before installation, federal technical teams should measure:
RF field levels
Wi‑Fi, Bluetooth, cellular, radar, and other ambient wireless sources
Signal leakage patterns
Existing network performance
Current lighting energy use
Air quality
Temperature and humidity stability
Sleep-environment conditions where medically appropriate
Cybersecurity constraints
Historic-preservation constraints
Life-safety requirements
2. Low-RF Presidential Recovery and Work Zones
Selected rooms should be configured as low-RF test environments, subject to White House security and medical approval.
These areas could include private rest, recovery, study, or stationary work environments where reduced RF exposure, better sleep quality, signal containment, and secure connectivity are strategically valuable.
The purpose is to determine whether unnecessary RF burden can be reduced without compromising communications, protection, emergency response, or operational functionality.
3. Infrared Li‑Fi and Optical Wireless
Infrared optical wireless access points should be installed in selected rooms to provide wireless data through light rather than conventional RF.
This should be limited first to stationary or semi-stationary use cases: desks, workstations, secure tablets, meeting-room devices, medical monitoring stations, or fixed sensors.
The NHS trial showed that Li‑Fi is not yet ideal for highly mobile general users. That limitation should be built into the pilot design from the beginning. The White House should test Li‑Fi where it is strongest: controlled rooms, stationary devices, secure spaces, and RF-sensitive environments.
4. Hardwired Backhaul
All optical wireless access points should connect to secure hardwired Ethernet or fiber backhaul.
The goal is not to create another unmanaged wireless layer. The goal is to reduce RF reliance while increasing network discipline, physical-layer control, and security auditability.
5. Power-over-Ethernet Lighting
PoE lighting should be tested where feasible to integrate lighting, power, data, occupancy sensing, and environmental monitoring into a centrally managed, hardwired infrastructure.
This is one of the most immediately promising elements. The NHS trial found meaningful operational value in IoT sensors and PoE lighting even while Li‑Fi itself remained immature for general deployment.
6. Environmental IoT Sensors
The pilot should include nonintrusive sensors for:
Air quality
Carbon dioxide
Temperature
Humidity
Water leaks
Occupancy
Lighting levels
Energy use
Equipment status
Maintenance alerts
These sensors should be hardwired or low-emission wherever feasible and should be subject to strict cybersecurity review.
7. RF Shielding and Attenuation
Selected rooms should test reversible RF attenuation strategies approved by federal security, fire-safety, medical, and facilities experts.
The purpose is not to create a symbolic shield. The purpose is to measure whether practical room-level RF reduction can be achieved while maintaining emergency communications, protective operations, classified-system integrity, and life-safety compliance.
8. Cybersecurity and Signal Containment
Optical wireless should not be described as “unhackable.” No serious White House system should ever make that claim.
But light-based communications have an important physical-layer advantage: visible and infrared light are naturally more spatially contained than conventional RF signals because they do not propagate through opaque walls in the same manner.
The pilot should measure:
Optical leakage
RF leakage
Wall penetration
Window leakage
Side-channel risks
Encryption performance
Authentication
Device control
Red-team attack resistance
Emergency fallback reliability
The goal is not marketing language. The goal is proof.
VII. Presidential Health and Performance Rationale
The President’s sleep, recovery, cognitive sharpness, and physiological resilience are matters of national importance.
The Commander-in-Chief operates under extraordinary stress. Every unnecessary environmental burden should be reduced where feasible. The White House already controls air, water, food, lighting, security, and medical readiness. Wireless exposure should now be treated as another measurable environmental variable.
This pilot does not need to claim that every compliant RF exposure is proven to cause human disease. The stronger and more accurate point is this:
The scientific record is now serious enough that a health-protective federal pilot is justified.
A low-RF optical wireless environment could support:
Better rest conditions
Reduced environmental RF burden
Lower signal congestion
Improved physical-layer security
More controlled communications
Less reliance on microwave-spectrum connectivity in sensitive spaces
Better environmental monitoring
Improved air-quality and humidity stability
A more resilient presidential recovery environment
Any health evaluation should be voluntary, private, medically supervised, and handled only by appropriate White House medical personnel.
VIII. National Security Rationale
The White House is not an ordinary building. Its communications environment must be resilient, disciplined, and secure.
RF signals can propagate through walls, windows, and other building boundaries. Optical wireless allows certain communications to be more physically contained within selected rooms.
Again, this does not eliminate the need for encryption, device authentication, secure endpoints, TEMPEST-aware design, emission security review, red-team testing, and fallback systems. But it creates an additional layer of physical discipline.
A properly designed photonics pilot could reduce:
Unnecessary RF emissions
RF leakage from selected rooms
Wi‑Fi congestion
External RF dependency
Attack surface from unmanaged wireless devices
Exposure to jamming or spoofing in certain indoor use cases
The White House should test this first before broader federal deployment in embassies, secure conference rooms, military housing, VA facilities, emergency operations centers, SCIF-adjacent environments, and medical facilities.
IX. Economic and Industrial Rationale
The future of wireless will not be radio-only. It will be hybrid: fiber, Ethernet, RF, millimeter wave, infrared, visible light, sensing, and photonics working together.
A White House Photonics Pilot would send a signal to American industry that the United States intends to lead in:
Optical wireless communications
Infrared Li‑Fi hardware
PoE lighting systems
Secure building infrastructure
Photonics manufacturing
Low-RF healthy-building design
6G-adjacent technologies
Secure indoor connectivity
Environmental sensing
Domestic semiconductor and optical-transceiver supply chains
The pilot should prioritize trusted, source-verified, domestic or allied components. No sensitive White House communications architecture should depend on untrusted foreign hardware.
X. Why This Should Be Done at the White House
The White House is the most symbolically powerful test environment in America.
If the UK can test Li‑Fi and IoT systems in ambulance stations, the United States can test a more advanced system at the center of American power.
The White House is where Alexander Graham Bell’s light-based wireless legacy should be restored.
The White House is where presidential health and secure communications matter most.
The White House is where a small pilot can create a national technology signal.
The White House is where outdated assumptions should give way to measurement, innovation, and leadership.
XI. Pilot Execution Plan
Phase 1: Presidential Directive
Direct OSTP, WHCA, Secret Service, GSA, NIST, NTIA, HHS, and appropriate Department of Defense experts to design a secure White House Photonics Pilot within 90 days.
The directive should require:
A technical feasibility assessment
A security assessment
A medical and wellness assessment
A procurement and supply-chain assessment
A historic-preservation assessment
A cybersecurity and emissions-security assessment
A cost and scalability assessment
Phase 2: Site Selection and Baseline Measurement
Select a limited number of nonpublic rooms or controlled test spaces.
Conduct baseline measurements of:
RF field strength
Network performance
Signal leakage
Air quality
Temperature
Humidity
Lighting performance
Energy usage
Occupancy patterns
Cybersecurity posture
Emergency fallback requirements
No public document should disclose room layouts, wiring pathways, security systems, protective operations, or communications details.
Phase 3: Limited Installation
Install a reversible pilot system including:
Infrared optical wireless access points
PoE lighting where feasible
Hardwired Ethernet or fiber backhaul
Environmental sensors
RF attenuation measures where approved
Secure dashboards
Encrypted device access
Manual override
Emergency fallback systems
Red-team testing
Phase 4: Measurement and Evaluation
Measure the pilot against objective criteria:
RF reduction
Signal containment
Speed
Latency
Reliability
Packet loss
Device compatibility
User mobility
User satisfaction
Sleep-environment quality
Air quality
Humidity and temperature stability
Lighting energy use
Cybersecurity performance
Operational burden
Maintenance cost
Installation disruption
Historic-building compatibility
Scalability
Phase 5: Presidential Report
Deliver a classified or controlled report answering:
Where does optical wireless outperform conventional RF wireless?
Where does it fail?
Can infrared Li‑Fi support secure stationary workspaces?
Can low-RF room design improve presidential recovery environments?
Can PoE lighting and IoT sensors improve White House efficiency?
Can optical wireless reduce signal leakage in sensitive rooms?
Can this architecture be scaled to federal facilities?
What domestic manufacturing capacity is required?
What regulatory updates are needed to align federal wireless policy with modern science?
XII. Recommended Federal Policy Follow-On
The White House Photonics Pilot should be paired with a broader federal review of RF exposure policy and next-generation wireless alternatives.
That review should examine:
Whether FCC RF exposure limits remain health-protective in light of post-2018 toxicology evidence
Whether Section 704 prevents communities from considering modern biological evidence
Whether current rules adequately account for children, long-term exposure, wireless ubiquity, pulse modulation, 5G/6G densification, and cumulative exposure
Whether Li‑Fi, infrared optical wireless, wired backhaul, and low-RF design should be encouraged in schools, hospitals, federal buildings, military housing, elder-care facilities, and secure government rooms
Whether federal procurement should favor low-emission, secure, hardwired, or optical alternatives where practical
This does not require shutting down existing wireless networks.
It requires giving America better options.
XIII. Strategic Message
This pilot delivers three major victories for your administration.
1. Protect the Commander-in-Chief
The President’s health, sleep, cognitive sharpness, and resilience are national-security assets.
The White House should become the safest, most advanced, most carefully measured indoor communications environment in the world.
2. Break the 1996 Bottleneck
America should not let Clinton-era wireless assumptions dictate 21st-century health, infrastructure, and innovation policy.
The FCC’s framework has already been challenged in federal court. Major toxicology evidence now demands a modern review.
3. Reclaim American Supremacy in Photonics
Alexander Graham Bell began light-based wireless in Washington, D.C.
The IEEE has now standardized light communications.
The UK has already piloted Li‑Fi and smart infrastructure in ambulance stations.
America should now lead the next phase from the White House.
XIV. Proposed Presidential Action
Mr. President, I respectfully recommend the following directive:
I direct the Office of Science and Technology Policy, the White House Communications Agency, the United States Secret Service, the General Services Administration, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, the Department of Health and Human Services, and appropriate Department of Defense technical experts to develop and implement a secure, reversible White House Photonics Pilot.
The pilot shall test infrared optical wireless communications, Power-over-Ethernet lighting, hardwired backhaul, environmental IoT sensors, and low-RF room design in selected nonpublic areas of the White House complex.
The pilot shall measure communications performance, cybersecurity, signal containment, environmental quality, RF reduction, energy efficiency, user experience, and presidential wellness considerations, without compromising emergency communications, protective operations, classified systems, or historic preservation.
Within 180 days of installation, the participating agencies shall deliver a controlled report evaluating whether optical wireless and low-RF design should be expanded to other federal facilities.
Conclusion
Mr. President,
America invented light-based wireless.
America built the modern communications age.
America should not concede the next one.
The evidence is now too serious to ignore. The law is outdated. The regulatory posture has been challenged. The technology is emerging. Other countries are already testing it. The IEEE has standardized it. The White House is the right place to prove it.
The White House Photonics Pilot would protect the Commander-in-Chief, strengthen secure communications, modernize federal infrastructure, stimulate American photonics manufacturing, and restore Bell’s wireless legacy in the capital where it began.
This is not retreat from technology.
This is the next stage of American technological dominance.
Recommendation: Authorize the White House Photonics Pilot.
Contact: John Coates
Contact information: 727-610-1188