Ultra-wideband (UWB) technology has been given the go-ahead for use in Europe after the European Commission set out conditions for its use which are to be integrated into members’ national laws within six months.
The EC specifies radiated power limits for
UWB for a range of frequency bands. The standards are to include “appropriate mitigation techniques”, such as detect-and-avoid, to prevent interference with other technologies using the same spectrum.
Use of equipment without such technology will be allowed in the 4.2-4.8GHz band until 2010 after which it is expected to operate only above 6GHz.
“The second generation of UWB will use the upper bands so we believe there’s a great deal of impetus to use that band,” Jim Lansford, CTO at UWB specialist Alereon, told EW. “There’s a great deal of push to move to 6-9GHz.”
Lansford said high frequency is more challenging. “We’re taking a very measured approach - BiCMOS process with SiGe implants. It’s very difficult to do CMOS radio that’ll do all the bandwidths.”
Alereon expects cable replacement UWB devices to be available in the next few months and the technology to be offered as an option in laptops by mid-year.
“Some people believe this could be the killer application because all phones have cameras and there’s no way to get the content off them,” said Lansford.
Jason Ellis, director business development, Staccato Communications, said the firm is seeing interest from carriers wanting to use the technology to offer “social networking”.
“It’s big on the Internet,” said Ellis, “and now it’s starting to make it into the mobile world. It brings a new aspect to MySpace.” South Korea Telecom is expected to launch this in 2008.