UWB versus 802.11 - a Network Perspective

Debate has been raging on the relative merits of Ultra Wide Band (UWB) and 802.11 as the technology of choice to achieve high speed wireless networking. The comparisons have focused on the single-link rate versus range issues. However, in real world applications, these radios will operate in a networking environment with significant interference effects. The interference handling capabilities of these two radios are drastically different due to their dramatically opposite power-bandwidth trade-offs. In this paper, a networking comparison, of UWB and 802.11, is performed through the application of a formal optimization theoretic framework. Simulations are conducted for network topologies typical of WPAN and WLAN scenarios. It is demonstrated that the link range over which UWB outperforms 802.11 is larger than is to be expected from a single-link comparison. Thus, a network-level comparison of different physical layers is shown to be essential in choosing the appropriate wireless technologies. A few possible future variations of 802.11 and UWB are also investigated in this flexible framework.