The Ultra-wideband space hots up
3 July 2002
News
With the continued popularity of wireless home networking and marked interest expressed by major players such as Intel, Cisco, Motorola and Sony in future applications of the technology, the Ultra-wideband (UWB) market is reported to be full of potential.
With the recent FCC approval of the marketing and legal sale of UWB products in commercial markets, UWB will begin penetrating the home market in late 2003 and increasingly grow its share of the home wireless market, although 802.11x technology will dominate the market throughout 2006. The earliest glimpse of future UWB-enabled devices is expected to be at the January 2003 Consumer Electronics Show, with actual end-products shipping out in time for the 2003 Christmas holiday season.
"UWB has much to offer in the home networking arena," says Gemma Paulo, an analyst at In-Stat/MDR. "With the popularity of 802.11x technology, especially the growing presence of Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11b) in the home environment, wireless home networking has come into the forefront.
"Even though Wi-Fi has done very well for data transmission purposes, many questions have been raised over 802.11x's ability to provide sufficient support for streaming audio and video applications in the home. From a topline level, UWB is extremely appealing, since all of its strengths really do address many of 802.11x's perceived weaknesses."
In-Stat/MDR expects that the first UWB end-products will be designed for the PAN (Personal Area Network) environment and will have speeds around 100 Mbps and a range of 10 m. XtremeSpectrum hopes to have its chipsets shipping to OEMs in 2002, it says, with the first consumer end-products shipping out in the Christmas 2003 time frame from the likes of consumer electronic and set-top box companies. Other UWB companies planning to enter the home networking market include Time Domain and General Atomics.
For further information see www.instat.com/catalog/cat-rc.htm
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