Ultra-Wide Band (UWB) is getting its opportunity as WiFi starts to run into the problems of success, Eric Broockman, CEO of UWB specialist Alereon, told the Globalpress Summit Conference in Santa Cruz today.
"WiFi is suffering from its own success," said Broockman, "it’s easy for it to get congested. If you need streaming video to run smoothly for a long time, you need UWB."
For instance, in an office, a few people streaming video will quickly mop up the available WiFi bandwidth.
Moreover, argued Broockman, UWB has 10x more headroom than WiFi so far as spectrum is concerned and has the additional advantage that UWB is immune to WiFi interference.
In the home, UWB is the obvious candidate for connecting a computer to a TV or adding another monitor to a TV or computer. Samsung has a strategic alliance with Alereon for the delivery of UWB for this purpose.
Current UWB has a range of 30 foot, a throughput of 200Mb/sec, and power is under 500mw. Alereon has alpha silicon which delivers a range of 60 foot, throughput of 800Mb/sec and power under 250mw.
The new capabilities will be available on the market in a year’s time, said Broockman.
Lack of Intel involvement in UWB is a plus for Alereon. "Everything Intel does in wireless turns out to be wrong," said Broockman, instancing the company’s premature dropping of Bluetooth and extended backing of Wimax among other bad wireless decisions.