Ultra-Wideband: It's Not Just Hype

Ultra-wideband (UWB) is the most over-hyped technology since Bluetooth. Claims of its abilities range from extreme simplicity and low cost, to extremely high throughput and low power, to very precise location-awareness, to ground-penetrating radar. Like Superman it can even help police see bad-guys through walls and help rescue workers find victims buried in ruble. The truth about UWB is that it has been demonstrated doing all of these things...just not all at the same time. Like any other technology UWB holds great promise, and it can and will be optimized for many different applications ranging from communications, to radar, to through-wall imaging, to collision avoidance systems, to sensor networks. There is currently a rush of companies both large and small developing technology, standards, and products in an attempt to mine gold from this unprecedented spectrum resource—7500 MHz of spectrum for unlicensed use—made available by the FCC's ruling on Feb 14th, 2002. However, the success of UWB products in the communications market place will depend on how well its promoters heed the history lessons learned on the bumpy path followed by the other unlicensed spectrum predecessors; Bluetooth and WiFi.

The lessons learned from UWB's unlicensed spectrum predecessors are many but the most important are:

1. Single Standard.
   A single cohesive standard is necessary before wide adoption will occur (IEEE 802.15.3a in the case of UWB). The IEEE process can drag on for years if too many participants view the process as a way to leverage some specific individual advantage for their own technology or timing.
   
   
2. Interoperability.
   The standard itself often does not go far enough to ensure compatibility and interoperability between manufacturers. The additional work of groups like the Bluetooth SIG, or organizations such as the WiFi Alliance must be created to establish interoperability criteria, testing, and certification.
   
   
3. Narrow the Chasm.
   Consumers must have a clear understanding of the functionality of the products and ease-of-use must be a primary criterion to ensure rapid adoption. This is the crossing-the-chasm lesson. Ideally, consumers immediately understand the products and they shouldn't be required to do anything new to enjoy the benefits other than to purchase.

So have UWB proponents heeded these lessons? Yes, I am happy to report that it appears the industry does learn from past mistakes and there seems to be an eager cooperative spirit within the UWB community only slightly more than a year after the FCC ruling has made it legal.

First, the IEEE organized the 802.15.3a group more than a year ago and there are hundreds of participants and dozens of companies collaborating to create a single standard quickly. Many of the participants are veterans of the Bluetooth and 802.11 wars and bring knowledge to the table on how to avoid repeating problems experienced in those processes. In the past year the 802.15.3a group has made rapid progress and after the recent March meeting where a variety of technical proposals for the standard were first made by 24 different companies, the group appears to be setting aside individual interests and merging around a single basic approach to the UWB specification, which is called multi-banding.

Second, within months of the FCC ruling last year, and at least two years in advance of an IEEE UWB standard publication, the industry self-organized an alliance called WiMedia to take the role of guaranteeing interoperability for UWB 802.15.3a devices much as WiFi has done for 802.11. The difference is that WiMedia happened a few years before the standard and silicon will be available instead of a few years after as in the case of 802.11.

Third, UWB proponents are aware that consumers must quickly and clearly understand the functionality and purpose of UWB products. To that end it is not unlikely that the brands of USB and Firewire could be leveraged in the future to designate UWB products that perform a similar function albeit wirelessly. In fact, it is probably not coincidental that the current IEEE criteria for UWB includes a 480 Mbps mode which is exactly the speed of USB 2.0.

With the obvious advantage of UWB for communications lying in its short range and high bandwidth capability, immediate applications will be in the Personal Area Network (PAN) space: connections from personal computers (PC) to peripherals, from PCs to consumer electronics (CE), CE to Home Entertainment, and the like. Simply put, UWB will start commercial life as a cable replacement for USB and Firewire. Oh, and by the way, USB and Firewire last year accounted for over 600M units sold. It is no wonder there is so much interest in the progress of UWB.

Much of the ultimate acceptance of UWB will depend on the pace and effectiveness of the standards processes. Those processes are well underway and much farther along than most people realize. While we all watched Bluetooth rise-fall-and-finally...rise, it will not take UWB as long. If UWB properly leverages the existing USB or 1394 industry eco-systems, brands, consumer understanding of the functionality, and existing upper layer software stacks, it has the opportunity to skip that painful two-three years of suffering through the fall.

And finally, UWB stands to benefit from the path blazed by Bluetooth and WiFi in other ways. One of the biggest struggles for both of those technologies was not that consumers didn't want them or wouldn't pay for them. It was that the products, which they needed to be integrated into to be successful, were products from companies that had never integrated a radio (in other words, PCs, PDAs, printers, and so on). One of the primary concerns for PC and peripheral companies is reliability to keep support cost under control and generate repeat buyers. It took a long time to get these OEMs comfortable with integrating a radio with appropriate levels of reliability. Now that this experience and competency has been gained, and because their customers are now asking for the next wireless feature, UWB stands to make a much quicker entry onto the already greased skids of the PC and peripheral industries.

WiFi has relieved us all of the Ethernet cables that tether us to the Internet and to the network. But Ethernet is only one of the many cables that hang from the back of your PC and from your home entertainment devices. UWB is uniquely suited to replacing the remaining cables on your PC with the exception of AC.

While UWB has a similar power consumption level to Bluetooth, it will follow a very similar but accelerated price/elasticity curve compared to that of Bluetooth—which started at $20+ and will approach $5 this year—and perhaps be half of that by the end of next year. Where UWB is unlike Bluetooth, however, is that it will offer more than 400x the throughput.

The bottom line is that the FCC's move to make more unlicensed spectrum available is proving to be a huge success for the wireless industry and for consumers. The latest entrant, UWB, is entering an industry and market dramatically matured through the experience of its predecessors Bluetooth and WiFi. If UWB proponents can quickly knock out the issues of standards and interoperability it will allow the powerful forces of Moore's law and economies of scale to start their work early bringing consumers cost effective products within a few short years from today. If the industry has learned from its past mistakes and it looks like it has, UWB is poised for dramatic growth and success in a way not witnessed before for any wireless technology.