The next big thing is actually ultrawide / But technology hampered by regulatory hurdles, a clash over standards

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> From: Monty Solomon <monty () roscom com>
> Date: June 27, 2004 11:04:32 PM PDT
> Subject: The next big thing is actually ultrawide / But technology  
> hampered by regulatory hurdles, a clash over standards
>
> The next big thing is actually ultrawide
>
> But technology hampered by regulatory hurdles, a clash over standards
>
> By Hiawatha Bray, Globe Staff  |  June 25, 2004
>
> The space shuttle videos looked almost better than the real thing.
> They were high-definition videos, on display earlier this month at
> the Sheraton Boston Hotel. And though there's nothing unusual these
> days about high-definition television, these two videos came from an
> unusual source -- a laptop computer in one corner of a medium-sized
> conference room.
>
> The laptop was plugged into a black box bearing two small antennas;
> similar boxes were plugged into the HDTV monitors. The result was a
> wireless network powerful enough to broadcast two different
> high-definition videos simultaneously, with enough leftover capacity
> to handle a third channel.
>
> Those black boxes were built by Freescale Semiconductor, a division
> of Motorola Corp. The microchips inside them can pump out 110 million
> bits of data per second -- twice as much as the fastest WiFi wireless
> networking equipment now on the market. And that's just the
> beginning. Before the year's out, Freescale will be making chips that
> run twice as fast; by next year, it plans to offer a slice of silicon
> that will broadcast wireless data at one billion bits per second.
>
> Freescale is one of the leaders in a new kind of digital technology
> called "ultrawideband" that's being described as the next big
> consumer wireless technology, thanks to its ability to pump out
> massive amounts of data. But even though some ultrawideband devices
> will come to market this year, the technology is still hobbled by
> regulatory challenges and a long-running clash between two
> incompatible ultrawideband systems. According to Bob Heile, the
> Attleboro physicist who leads a wireless standards-setting committee
> for the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE),
> "Right now, it's 10 percent technology and 90 percent politics."
>
> Most radio devices send out a signal over a narrow band of
> frequencies. For example, WiFi data networks use a small set of
> frequencies in the 2.4 gigahertz range. But ultrawideband works by
> broadcasting over a much larger chunk of the radio spectrum -- from
> 3.1 to 10.5 gigahertz -- all at the same time. As a result, even a
> low-powered ultrawideband radio signal can carry huge amounts of data.
>
> Ultrawideband technology has other powerful attributes. Because the
> signal can penetrate solid objects, police forces and armies use the
> technology in radar systems that can see through walls. The precise
> digital pulses of an ultrawideband radio make it possible to locate a
> transmitter with an accuracy of a few inches, so automakers are
> working on ultrawideband detectors that can spot oncoming cars and
> prevent collisions.
>
> ....
>
> <http://www.boston.com/business/globe/articles/2004/06/25/ 
> the_next_big_thing_is_actually_ultrawide/>


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