UWB standardization effort ends in controversy

Ultrawideband technology has been regarded with considerable promise for several years. Vendors want to use the short-range, high-speed wireless UWB for many potentially popular applications, such as home networks, connectivity between PCs and peripherals or monitors, and the transfer of large files between devices. Currently, though, the lack of a unified standard has hurt UWB adoption. There are two principal approaches to the technology, and companies have held off making products, hoping an IEEE standardization effort could yield one protocol on which they could focus their efforts. However, the IEEE was unable to get the UWB Forum and the WiMedia Alliance - proponents of the two main approaches - to agree to merge their widely divergent technologies into a single standard. Vendors are now preparing to release products, such as dongles or wireless hubs, based on one or the other UWB version. But products based on one version are incompatible with devices based on the other because the two approaches are so different. This cause problems for products used within the same network or that must communicate with one another. Meanwhile, vendor freescale semiconductor recently left the UWB Forum and decided to promote its own ultrawideband version.