Making waves, fast

Ultrawide band local area networks, Financial Times, 12/03/2003

Wireless networks will be a major theme at CeBIT this year. But as today's wireless technologies become more commonplace, researchers are already working on a next-generation technology that can potentially offer data transfer at 100 times the speed - ultra wideband (UWB).

Unlike narrowband systems such as mobile phones, UWB operates over a very wide area of the radio spectrum, 1.5GHz or more. Instead of a constant wave, most UWB devices emit very quick pulses, less than 1 trillionth of a second, allowing them to transmit data very fast at low power levels.

The low signal power means that UWB radios can occupy the same frequencies as narrowband technologies, such as Bluetooth or mobile phones, without interference.

For wireless networking, UWB offers three main advantages over existing systems: much higher data rates, up to 100 times current speeds, lower power and greater spatial density.

While existing wireless networks based on the commonest existing standard, 802.11b or "Wi-Fi", provide 11 megabits (million bits) per second (mbps), UWB has been shown to provide 500mbps and companies researching the technology predict that up to 1 gigabit per second may be possible.

Research from Intel, the world's biggest chipmaker, estimates that a UWB-based rival to Bluetooth could provide the same functionality with 1/100th of the power drain - an important factor when using portable devices which depend on batteries. UWB can also accommodate far more users in a given space than existing technologies - 1,000 times more data transmission for a given area than 802.11b.

For these reasons, says Jim Slaby, senior analyst at Giga Information Group, one application for UWB will be personal area networks - linking phones, headsets, PDAs, computers and media players. "My view of UWB is as a Bluetooth killer. Bluetooth is starting to look like a technology that is going to be superseded before it gets widely adopted."

Another early use will be home entertainment networks. XtremeSpectrum, a US start-up has developed a $20 UWB chipset which it expects to see in wireless cable replacements for home theatre systems in time for Christmas 2003.

Another US start-up, Pulse-Link, has developed prototype UWB home entertainment systems for cable set-top boxes. Pulse-Link has demonstrated a 400mbps secure wireless corporate network based on UWB. "With that bandwidth, you can run all the most advanced encryption protocols that exist and still have more than enough room for all your traffic," says Bruce Watkins, chief operating officer.

This would overcome one of the major headaches with 802.11b technology - the difficulty of protecting the network from hackers. UWB technology is also being used in a variety of non-communications products, such as scanners for finding bodies under the rubble of a collapsed building.

Before it takes off as a communications medium, the UWB industry still has to overcome the thorny problem of agreeing standards. The equipment that comes onto the market this year will work only with products from the same vendor, but the vision of linking all home electronics together through UWB will require the industry to agree a standard.

The US Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers is starting work on a standard for UWB personal area networks, but such standardisation can take years. As Chris Fisher, vice-president for sales and marketing at XtremeSpectrum, says: "If the IEEE gets tangled up in bureaucracy, some of the vendors may split off and form a special interest group to get things moving quicker - as happened with Bluetooth and other popular standards."

UWB products with XtremeSpectrum's chips will ship only in the US, where the Federation Communications Commission permitted the use of UWB for the first time in February 2002. UWB is still not approved for use in other countries - it is likely to be 12 months at least before the European regulator approves it. UWB will occupy the same areas of the spectrum as those used by existing licencees.

They are naturally concerned about interference in their airspace. For this reason, the FCC limited the spectrum available to UWB devices to 3.1 to 10.6GHz - avoiding the frequencies used by 3G mobile and global positioning satellites.

Despite these issues, many electronics companies at CeBIT, including Intel, Siemens, Philips and Sony, are already researching UWB. Siemens, Sony and Marconi are investors in Time Domain, a US UWB start-up. If the bold claims of the vendors are matched by reality, UWB could soon become a standard part of most electronic products.