Although ultra wideband has tremendous potential in a number of applications, especially in the home entertainment
market, will the battle over defining a standard render it obsolete if a decision isn’t made within the next few
months? With that being said, will 802.11n technology surpass UWB?
Pulse~LINK’s president, Bruce Watkins, says there are many applications for UWB. “You might bring a new DVD player
home, plug it into the wall, and have it automatically networked,” he says. “Or imagine wirelessly streaming video from
a camcorder to the hard drive on a PC.”
Wi-Fi’s momentum looms large, though. “The window of market entry for new wireless technologies is closing
rapidly,” says Dr. Predrag Filipovic, consulting analyst with The Diffusion Group. “While UWB may offer greater
throughput than today’s 802.11 solutions, new consumer multimedia systems will require longer ranges than UWB promises.
Moreover, 802.11n has plenty of ammunition—100 Mbps or more—to address bandwidth-intensive applications across
distances.”
