It is commonly agreed that the next generation of wireless communication systems, usually referred to as 4G systems, will not be based on a single access technique but it will encompass a number of different complementary access technologies. The ultimate goal is to provide ubiquitous connectivity, integrating seamlessly operations in most common scenarios, ranging from fixed and low-mobility indoor environments in one extreme to high-mobility cellular systems in the other extreme. Surprisingly, perhaps the largest installed base of short-range wireless communications links are optical, rather than RF, however. Indeed, ‘point and shoot’ links corresponding to the Infra-Red Data Association (IRDA) standard are installed in 100 million devices a year, mainly digital cameras and telephones. In this paper we argue that optical wireless communications (OW) has a part to play in the wider 4G vision. An introduction to OW is presented, together with scenarios where optical links can enhance the performance of wireless networks.