IEEE Group Abandons Efforts to Develop Single UWB Standard
The IEEE 802.15.3a task group is abandoning its pursuit of a single ultra wideband standard after 3 years of trying. The group declined to endorse either of the rival standards promoted by the WiMedia Alliance and Motorola spinoff Freescale. The task group voted Wed. at a meeting in Hawaii not to accept one standard after neither appeared likely to achieve 75% support in the group.
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The development means consumers will have to choose from products containing chipsets based on 2 different standards. The FCC under Chmn. Michael Powell actively promoted UWB, often in the face of resistance from other nations concerned about potential interference.
“Both sides had decided to start selling their chipsets,” said a regulatory source who has followed the UWB battles. “They have different standards. They're not compatible. They have decided that they're each going… to build their own standards and compete in the marketplace. It’s going to be Beta versus VHS all over again.”
Freescale is expected to be first to market with its chipsets. Equipment makers Belkin and Gefen said they will start UWB-enabled devices targeting the U.S. market in the spring (CD Jan 4 p1). But WiMedia has the advantage of size, since it’s backed by Intel, Texas Instruments, Sony, Microsoft and dozens of others. WiMedia members also hope to have their first products in stores this year, within a few months of Freescale’s. But major sales of both technologies aren’t likely until the 2007 holiday season, we're told.
“Unfortunately IEEE… has not been able to deliver a standard for UWB,” said Martin Rofheart, dir. of the UWB operation at Freescale. “Ideally, IEEE would have created specifications for a MB-OFDM [WiMedia] solution and a DS- UWB [Freescale] solution that industry groups could pull from as they would any other components… While it is unfortunate that this did not happen, we believe meaningful standards are ultimately made by the market.”
“The fact that they hit a logjam it couldn’t break doesn’t mean we won’t see a widely accept standard,” Eric Broockman, CEO of WiMedia member Alereon, told us: “It actually clarifies the market situation somewhat.”
Broockman said there are major differences between UWB and the fight between VHS and Sony with its proprietary Betamax technology. “Sony had a very big marketplace lead with Beta… and Beta was considered by many folks a superior technology,” he said: “In this case you have all the brand names and you have the better technologies. You have a lesser brand and lesser technology pushed by Freescale.” But Broockman conceded Freescale will have the advantage of being first to market: “Time will tell if that is enough time to develop a market that is successful.”