The 2007 Bluetooth Evolution Conference, in London, October 31st and November 1st, 2007 has produced some fireworks. Representatives of mobile phone manufacturers poured cold water over ultrawideband (UWB) for handsets, reports a UK magazine, Computeractive.
John Barr, director of standards at Motorola, said Wifi was more likely to be used for fast data transfers in the next generation of mobile phones because it was a more mature technology.
And Patrick Lind, senior specialist in mobile technology at Sony Ericsson, said there were teething problems with early implementations of all new technology. His company is researching UWB but was likely to stick with Wifi for a while. But he said he would use UWB if a “major rival” did so.
Mika Saren, technology marketing manager of Nokia, said he could not say if his company would use it. None of the three ruled out the use of UWB in mobile phones in the future.
Bluetooth is expected to be allied with UWB and possibly to Wifi. Bluetooth is frugal in its use of power and has well-tried systems of discovering compatible devices. The idea, to be incorporated in the next-generation spec, is that Bluetooth is used for discovery and signalling but will call up a faster link when needed.
This was originally to have been UWB, but now Wifi is also being considered - under pressure from the Wifi organizations, according to some delegates at the conference.
But Mark Moore, chief technology of UWB chip designer Artimi, said, “You can expect to see UWB in phones from Asia next year,” he said. He also pointed out that UWB uses far less power than Wifi. “It is the most efficient way to transmit data,” he said.
The first Certified Wireless USB PC hubs, which utilize UWB, are now coming out.
The WiMedia Alliance is an open industry association that promotes standardization and multi-vendor interoperability of UWB products, like Certified Wireless USB.
Two incompatible UWB schemes appeared; DS (direct sequence) and OFDM (orthogonal frequency division multiplexing). Supporters of each approach—the UWB Forum for DS-UWB and the WiMedia Alliance for OFDM-UWB—worked to get the IEEE 802.15 TG3a to adopt their technologies as a standard, but the IEEE failed to reach consensus on a single UWB standard.
When the IEEE was unable to come to an agreement on a single UWB standard, WiMedia was spun off as an independent organization in anticipation of developing a defacto standard. It has largely succeeded in doing that, although the proof will be in consumer acceptance.
“Wireless USB” from the WiMedia Alliance is incompatible with the Direct Sequence “Cable-Free USB”, which uses a combination of Freescale Semiconductor’s Direct Sequence Ultra-Wideband (DS-UWB) chipset and Icron Technologies’ ExtremeUSB.
AP Technology Writer Peter Svensson tested two wireless USB hubs, one from Belkin and one from Iogear. Each one costs $200 with an included dongle. He was underwhelmed.
“Many reviewers have conducted essentially baseless and rather useless reviews of these first products“, says Eric Broockman, CEO of Alereon. They shouldn’t be compared to a $5 USB cable, he says. “If a reviewer wants to make a comparison, compare the convenience of laying a 16-foot USB cable on the floor from your laptop to the printer”.
UltraWideband is under the gun, notes EE Times. An independent tester reports two UWB products now shipping have average throughput of just 20 Mbits/second at a range of 15 feet.
Meanwhile, the Wireless High-Definition Interface (WHDI), developed by Amimon, is said to support uncompressed HDTV with equivalent video data rates up to 1.5Gbps using a single 20MHz channel in the 5GHz ISM band, delivering that signal over 30 meters through walls.
Gigabit wireless technology startup SiBeam has plans a 60GHz technology, partnering with the WirelessHD consortium to deliver a promised gigabit wireless technology for the home. LG Electronics, Matsushita (Panasonic), NEC, SAMSUNG, Sony and Toshiba announced that they are working on WirelessHD technology.
Dubbed OmniLink60 and made in a standard CMOS process, the working chipsets will deliver non-line-of-sight beam steering and A/V connectivity for wireless video networks for uncompressed video display. “Our aim with this technology is to exploit the 7 GHz of unlicensed spectrum around 60 GHz to provide very high data rates to multiple users within an indoor wireless environment using conventional silicon,” said John LeMoncheck, SiBEAM CEO.
Nine Proposals for 802.15c (at 60 GHz), have merged into two proposals, at the September 2007 meeting.
The IEEE 802.11 has also convened a Very High Throughput study group to look at Gbit-class versions of Wi-Fi. The group has heard a range of presentations from AT&T, Intel, Motorola, Nokia and startup Wilocity. It could be ready to launch a formal standards effort as early as January. One presentation mentioned the possibility of building 3 to 5 Gbit/s products in the unlicensed 5-GHz band that could serve monitors, projectors and video cameras.
The unlicensed 5GHz and 60 GHz bands can deliver more bandwidth than cable.
In 3-5 years, 802.16m could deliver 1 Gbps in the 5 GHz band, while 60 GHz might provide the mesh backbone. Could a $.25 cent, beam-steerable phased-array antenna, developed by Pinyon Technologies, rip apart traditional time/space?
Clearwire and Sprint have a combined average of 90 MHz of spectrum in most of their markets. With 50 MHz of spectrum, an operator can deliver DVD-quality television. With 70 MHz, HDTV is possible. Better yet, Sprint’s MobiTV can deliver both multicasting and unicasting — dynamically switching to maximize network efficiency.
Obliterating Comcast may soon be a piece of cake. Or is that wishful thinking.
Related UWB articles on DailyWireless include; Wireless USB Arrive, Wireless USB from Alereon, Wireless USB Gets a Standard, Motorola Buys Gbps Wireless HomeNet, Wireless HDMI, UWB at CES, UWB Goes Global, UltraWideband: All Together Now? and Cable-Free Vrs Wireless USB.
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