On The Verge

It’s no secret that the MBOA (Multiband OFDM Alliance) and the UWB Forum are engaged in a stalemate over standards for UWB (Ultra Wideband) communications. Matthew Miller described the battle in “Ultra-wide division: Rival UWB groups tout support” last summer and nothing has really changed. Now upstart Pulse~Link is out promoting a third alternative that it calls CWave UWB (Continuous Wave UWB). Pulse-Link claims that its technology will offer significantly higher data rates than MBOA or UWB Forum technologies at PAN (personal Area network) ranges while supporting the transmission of HDTV streams at WLAN (wireless LAN) ranges.

The UWB space has generally been disappointing both in terms of the inability of the industry to adopt a standard and the relatively short range that appears feasible. Both the MBOA and UWB Forum members are going ahead with product plans despite the lack of a single standard. And Motorola, from the UWB Forum camp, has a huge head start in terms of chip development. I believe that the MBOA will at best deliver on what Intel is calling Wireless USB with range covering an office at best. I believe that the UWB Forum will deliver technology that can move HDTV streams around a living room.

The Holy Grail of wireless in the home, however, remains the ability to move multimedia streams around a home – a goal long targeted by 802.11 players. Pulse~Link could prove to be a live long shot if they can substantiate their claims. The company claims that the technology will deliver 800-Mbps or even 1-Gbps rates in the PAN environment. Such performance would enable wireless DVI or HDMI to connect HDTV receivers to monitors. Of potentially greater importance, the company claims line-of-sight transmission of 1-Mbps streams at a range of 100m.

Of course the CWave UWB announcement was accompanied by the requisite industry association – the Consumer Wireless Audio-Video Entertainment Alliance (CWAVE Alliance). As of now, Pulse~Link has not announced CWAVE members.

You may think that there’s no room for a third UWB technology, and that’s a fair concern. On the other hand, Pulse~Link is claming a wireless capability that competes more with WLAN than with UWB technologies – and it’s not like the UWB players are entrenched in any case. While I’d pretty much written off 802.11 WLANs as an option for whole house media distribution, the MIMO (multiple in, multiple out) technology developed by Airgo Networks has me rethinking that position. Moreover, other wired options exits such as Entropic Communications’ plans to distribute HDTV over existing coax plants.

On its side, Pulse~Link’s existence doesn’t immediately depend on widespread adoption of its technology by consumer electronics vendors. The company is also pushing its technology into secure WLAN applications where 802.11 simply can never be secure enough for uses such as homeland security. Pulse-Link has also been outspoken about the need to develop time-spectrum allocation mechanisms so that all UWB systems can work without interference (see “Regulating time”).

As for CWave UWB, Pulse~Link has developed an evaluation kit and will be demonstrating the technology in the coming months. The company just announced the PLK23300-EVK Evaluation Kit that includes four UWB radios, diagnostic software, and a GUI. Alas the kit isn’t really for sale but rather will be provided to partners that join CWAVE. The company will publicly demonstrate CWave UWB at the 2005 Homeland and Global Security Summit in Washington, DC, (March 1 - 3).