Ultra-Wideband Wireless Products Move A Step Closer To Market Availablity With Completion Of Key Specifications

(I-Newswire) March 5, 2005 - UWB is a wireless technology designed to transmit data within short range (up to 10 meters) at very high bandwidths (up to 480Mbps) while using little power. It is ideally suited for wirelessly transferring high-quality multimedia content, such as videos, between consumer electronic devices and computer peripherals. One of the main advantages of UWB is it does not interfere with other wireless technologies already in use, such as Wi-Fi*, WiMAX* and cellular wide-area communications.

The Wireless USB specification is expected to be completed at the end of March and the MBOA medium access controller (MAC) is scheduled to be completed by midyear.

Wireless USB will be one of the technology implementations that will use UWB as the radio technology. The goal of Wireless USB is to deliver the same ease of use and high speeds associated with USB 2.0, but without wires. To maintain the same usage and architecture as wired USB, the Wireless USB Promoter Group, of which Intel is a leading member, is defining the wireless USB specification. The first version of this specification will be completed by the end of this month. This will enable an easy migration path for today's wired USB solutions.

The MBOA's MAC layer specification v1.0 is expected to be finalized by the end of June, after the group's merger with the WiMedia Alliance. The WiMedia Alliance and the MBOA are industry groups that share a large portion of their memberships and have similar missions. Combining these groups will bring efficiency in developing the UWB standards and interoperabilty. After the groups merge they will maintain the current momentum to create a certification and interoperability testing program capable of addressing the entire UWB technology stack.

"One of the key successes of the UWB program is the enormous industry support and cooperation for developing the specifications, with close to 200 companies involved," said Kevin Kahn, senior fellow, Intel's Corporate Technology Group. "In addition, with the merger of WiMedia and MBOA, the association will grow stronger and deliver a more integrated, interoperable specification."

Intel believes the broadly supported MBOA, WiMedia Alliance and Wireless USB Promoter Group will enable commercial development of UWB standards-based products in late 2005 to early 2006. Through cooperative work with many other key industry players in the consumer electronics, computing and communications segments, as well as these industry groups, Intel is helping to create an ecosystem for UWB-enabled devices.

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