Future Belongs to Wireless USB Technology

People dream of freedom when it is about operating their PCs and multimedia devices! Today it is possible! Wireless technology is the one to liberate users from connecting to wires. This technology is designed to let wired PC peripherals and multimedia devices interconnect over blazingly fast ultrawideband (UWB) technology.

As most of the advanced technologies, UWB was originally developed for military applications, such as surveillance and radar. Now it became public. The capacity of the technology is limited to 3.1-GHz - 10.6-GHz spectrum. This makes it possible to wirelessly control devices in the range of 10-15 meters.

The attempt to standardize UWB technology for high-speed WPAN (wireless personal area network) began in 2002 under IEEE. Then it was stopped and the issue was discussed up to 2007.

How the Technology works?

UWB (ultrawideband) radio technology makes it possible to benefit from wireless USB. It gives considerable advantage over wireless technologies such as Wi-Fi, which offers maximum speeds of 54 Mbps. UWB is able to use speeds that tops out at 480 Mbps.

UWB spreads the bit-stream over a large bandwidth using low-power pulses. This enables coexistence with other technologies using the same spectrum. One of the upsides of UWB is its efficiency of power consumption, which is about 10 times less than Wi-Fi, thus improving battery life.

Though wireless USB is a technology checked and proven in lab conditions, it will take some time to replace wired USB interfaces. This is because wireless USB interfaces should be built into PCs, laptops, cameras and other devices. This will allow any consumer to use already existing wireless products.

The Duel

Those who are fighting for wireless USB technology are Freescale (with its proprietary Cable-Free USB), and the USB Implementers Forum (with its Certified Wireless USB). The last one has a serious backing of industry giants such as HP, Intel and Microsoft as well as silicon providers such as Alereon, WiQuest and Wisair.

For the average consumer the matter of who will win is actually unimportant. The fact that really matters is that Certified Wireless USB and Cable-Free USB differ considerably from one another and are not inter-operable. They are based on different platforms. Besides, Cable-Free is designed around the USB 2.0 specification; Certified Wireless USB is a new protocol designed with wireless in mind. Also Certified Wireless works on higher speeds, but its specification requires new drivers, this may slow adoption; whereas Cable-Free uses USB 2.0 drivers.

Further, Cable-Free aims to use a UWB-enabled USB hub and dongle that connects to existing wired USB connectors. This assures secure usage as the hub and dongle are sold as a matched pair, which prevents unauthorized connections. Certified Wireless USB uses a hub-and-spoke model which enables one host adapter to communicate with as many as 127 Certified Wireless USB devices in the area. Thus to prevent unauthorized communications, Certified Wireless USB elaborated two models to pair a device with a host.

But until now, neither Certified Wireless USB nor Cable-Free products have been shipped. Some of the important factors, such as strong backing of Certified Wireless USB (from Intel, Microsoft, NEC and a range of silicon providers) are to be in its favor. At the same time Cable-Free's advantage is simplicity and time to market.

A real challenge for wireless technology is to prove its ability to deliver the same ease of usage as wired USB. Considering 2 billion wired USB devices available, it will take time to switch to the wireless ones.