Subject: [NEXTEL-1] UWB Decision Narrows

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2003 18:17:08 -0400

UWB Decision Narrows
By Brad Smith
July 15, 2003
news@2 direct

Sides are being taken in advance of next week's important meeting of the
IEEE's standards group deciding what technology will be used for
ultra-wideband specifications.

The IEEE 802.15.3a task group will meet in San Francisco to winnow down the
number of UWB proposals. It is possible the committee could reach a decision
on one proposal, although that doesn't seem likely.

There had been 31 different proposals submitted to the committee earlier
this year but that number has been whittled down to a half-dozen. Among the
final six are two that have gained a lot of attention.

The latest comes from a new group called the Multiband OFDM Alliance, which
submitted its proposal last night to the IEEE. The alliance brings together
earlier proposals by Texas Instruments and Intel and has the backing of such
companies as Philips, Samsung Electronics, Panasonic, HP, Staccato
Communications and Time Domain.

The other proposal includes XtremeSpectrum (http://www.extremespectrum.com/)
and Motorola. XtremeSpectrum, which has silicon supporting its proposal, has
submitted a letter of assurance to the IEEE in which it guarantees to make
available all 'essential' intellectual property on a 'reasonable' basis.

An XtremeSpectrum spokeswoman says the letter was sent to the IEEE to refute
claims that its UWB proposal was 'encumbered' by IP that wouldn't be made
available.

The Multiband OFDM Alliance (http://www.multibandofdm.org) proposal
essentially combines two earlier camps led by TI and Intel, bringing
together OFDM and multi-band.

Steve Turner, TI's business development director for semiconductors, says
next week's IEEE meeting had been expected to be a 'low hurdle' vote that
narrowed the choices to a few. Now, with six proposals on the table, it
might be possible to choose one.

It would be an 'amazing accomplishment,' Turner says, if the IEEE were able
to get to that stage so quickly.

Still, it would be another six to 12 months before the actual UWB standard
was finalized, Turner says. The first products based on the standard might
start appearing in the fall of 2005.

The multi-band alliance includes a number of companies from the consumer
electronics and computing worlds that are eyeing products such as
high-definition television and short-range communications between devices.

UWB is seen as a low-cost wireless interface that provides data rates up to
110 megabits per second at distances of 10 meters.

Some analysts and those in the industry have looked at UWB as 'the next big
thing' for wireless communications, Turner says. He says the alliance
proposal can 'do this right and quickly.'

Mark Bowles of Staccato Communications says he is optimistic the alliance
proposal will emerge as the leading one in next week's voting, if not the
final choice.

http://www.wirelessweek.com/index.asp?layout=document&doc_id=122806&verticalID=34&vertical=Business+and+Finance&industry=

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