  New high-data-rate multimedia services and applications are evolving
continuously and exponentially increasing the demand for wireless capacity of
fifth-generation (5G) and beyond. The existing radio frequency (RF)
communication spectrum is insufficient to meet the demands of future
high-datarate 5G services. Optical wireless communication (OWC), which uses an
ultra-wide range of unregulated spectrum, has emerged as a promising solution
to overcome the RF spectrum crisis. It has attracted growing research interest
worldwide in the last decade for indoor and outdoor applications. OWC offloads
huge data traffic applications from RF networks. A 100 Gb/s data rate has
already been demonstrated through OWC. It offers services indoors as well as
outdoors, and communication distances range from several nm to more than 10000
km. This paper provides a technology overview and a review on optical wireless
technologies, such as visible light communication, light fidelity, optical
camera communication, free space optical communication, and light detection and
ranging. We survey the key technologies for understanding OWC and present
state-of-the-art criteria in aspects, such as classification, spectrum use,
architecture, and applications. The key contribution of this paper is to
clarify the differences among different promising optical wireless technologies
and between these technologies and their corresponding similar existing RF
technologies
