Ultra-Wideband: The Next Generation Personal Area Network Technology

Mohit Lad

A Patni White Paper

COPYRIGHT
Copyright Patni Computer Systems Ltd. All Rights Reserved. February 2004 Restricted Rights Legend
This document may not, in whole or in part, be copied photocopied, reproduced, translated, or reduced to any electronic medium or machine readable form without prior consent, in writing, from Patni Computer Systems Ltd. Information in this document is subject to change without notice and does not represent a commitment on the part of Patni. This document is provided "as is" without warranty of any kind including without limitation, any warranty of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. Further, Patni does not warrant, guarantee, or make any representations regarding the use, or the results of the use, of the written material in terms of correctness, accuracy, reliability, or otherwise. All other brand and product nam es are trademarks of their respective companies.

Patni Computer Systems Limited

India Akruti, MIDC Cross Road No.21 Andheri (E), Mumbai 400 093 Tel: +91 22 5693 0205 Fax: +91 22 5693 0211 North America 238 Main Street Cambridge MA 02142 Tel: +1 617-354-7424 Fax: +1 617-876-4711 UK & Europe Japan
th

Vistacentre, 50 Salisbury Road 4 floor, Aoyagi Building, Chuo 5-39-11, Hounslow, Middlesex, UK. TW4 6JQ Nakano-ku, Tokyo 164-0011 Tel: +44 20 8538 0120 Tel: +81 3 53281952 Fax: +44 20 8538 0276 Fax: +81 3 53281951

Table of Contents
Introduction ..............................................................................................................................................................2 What is UWB............................................................................................................................................................2 How UWB works ......................................................................................................................................................2 UWB signal transport options .............................................................................................................................3 Characteristics of UWB ............................................................................................................................................4 Disruptive Technology..............................................................................................................................................5 Application Areas for UWB .......................................................................................................................................5 Standardization ........................................................................................................................................................7 Facts and Findings about UWB ..............................................................................................................................10 Challenges and Regulations...................................................................................................................................12 What the Future holds............................................................................................................................................12 References & Further Reading ...............................................................................................................................13

Copyright Patni Computer Systems Ltd., 2004. All rights reserved.

INTRODUCTION
Ultra-Wideband (UWB) is a high data rate, low power short-range wireless technology that is generating a lot of interest in the research community and the industry, as a high-speed alternative to existing wireless technologies such as IEEE 802.11 WLAN, HomeRF, and HiperLANs.. This paper attempts to give the reader an overview of the UWB technology by covering aspects such as working of the technology, its characteristics, and the standardization efforts going on. Further, it briefly describes the potential application areas of UWB, the market trends, and the challenges and regulations that impact the growth and acceptance of the technology.

WHAT IS UWB
UWB is a Radio Frequency (RF) technology that transmits binary data, using low energy and extremely short duration impulses or bursts (in the order of picoseconds) over a wide spectrum of frequencies. It delivers data over 15 to 100 meters and does not require a dedicated radio frequency, so is also known as carrier-free, impulse or base-band radio. Although the technology is old, its usage and consideration for commercial applications such as home networking picked up after the FCC - Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ruling in February 2002. This ruling approved the limited use of unlicensed wireless systems that transmit high-speed data across a broad portion of the UWB spectrum band. Technical standards and operational restrictions okayed by FCC are intended to enable the co-existence of UWB with existing radio technologies such as IEEE 802.11 (Wi-Fi), HomeRF, and HiperLAN.. People commonly refer to UWB as available spectrum rather than as a technology: 7,500 MHz of unlicensed spectrum, in the 3.1-10.6 GHz band, is currently available in the US for any communication system that occupies more than 500 MHz.

HOW UWB WORKS

UWB broadcasts short digital pulses, which are timed very precisely (intervals of about 10 picoseconds) on a carrier signal across a very wide spectrum (number of frequency channels) at the same time. The duration of the short pulse is generally less than 1 nanosecond.

Figure 1: A UWB communication system

Transmitter and receiver must be coordinated to send and receive pulses with an accuracy of a trillionth of a second. In a multiple access system, a user has a unique pseudo-random (PN) code. A receiver operating with the same PN code can decode the transmission. The UWB receiver consists of a highly accurate clock oscillator and a correlator to convert the received RF signal into a baseband digital or analog output signal. The UWB transmitter and the receiver are tightly coupled

Copyright Patni Computer Systems Ltd., 2004. All rights reserved.

by means of an acknowledgement scheme where the transmitter waits for the receivers response for a specific time period (approx. 10 seconds).

UWB SIGNAL TRANSPORT OPTIONS

In every commercially deployed radio technology, from cellular phones, Wi-Fi (802.11b) to 802.11a , there are widespread modulation techniques used to create the signal transport. They vary from mono-phase, bi-phase to multi-phase approaches. The marketplace drives these disparate approaches to a standard over time, and, the most efficient methods (measured as a combination of factors such as power consumption, cost to build, data rate, transmission distance, and bit error rate) are chosen. In the case of 802.11b and 802.11a, mono-phase approaches are extinct. The same survival of the fittest process will occur in the newly forming market segment of UWB radio technologies. The IEEE 802.15 High Rate Alternative PHY Task Group (TG3a) for WPANs is working on a project to provide a higher speed PHY enhancement amendment to 802.15.3 for applications involving imaging and multimedia. UWB technology will drive the standardizations efforts and currently several proposals are being debated. The two major contenders led by alliances from multiple companies are trying to convince the FCC to accept one of the techniques. Details of the two proposals are given below.

XtremeSpectrum, Motorola and Parthus-Cerva led DS-CDMA

Direct sequence spread spectrum, also known as direct sequence code division multiple access (DS-CDMA), is one of the two approaches. In this approach, the stream of information to be transmitted is divided into small pieces, each of which is allocated to a frequency channel across the spectrum. The data signal at the point of transmission is combined with a higher data-rate bit sequence (also known as a chipping code) that divides the data according to a spreading ratio. The redundant chipping code helps the signal resist interference and also enables the original data to be recovered if data bits are damaged during transmission. Direct sequence contrasts with the other spread spectrum process, known as Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum, or Frequency Hopping Code Division Multiple Access (FH-CDMA), in which a broad slice of the bandwidth spectrum is divided into many possible broadcast frequencies. In general, frequency-hopping devices use less power and are cheaper, but the performance of DSCDMA systems is usually better and more reliable.

Intel and Texas Instruments led Multiband OFDM

Multi-carrier, multi-band systems use Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) techniques to transmit the information on each of the sub-bands. OFDM has several properties, such as high spectral efficiency, inherent resilience to RF interference, robustness to multi-path, and the ability to efficiently capture multi-path energy. It is also well understood and has been proven in other commercial technologies (e.g. IEEE 802.11a/g). The main advantages are:

Easier to collect multi-path energy using a single RF chain Relaxed switching times Insensitivity to group delay variations Ability to deal with narrow band interference at the receiver end without sacrificing sub-bands or data rate.

Copyright Patni Computer Systems Ltd., 2004. All rights reserved.

The only drawback is that the transmitter is slightly more complex as it requires an Inverse Fast Fourier Transform (IFFT) and the peak-to-average is slightly higher than that of the pulse-based multi-band approaches. Given the frequency band from 3.1 GHz to 4.8 GHz and the FCC requirement that UWB signals have to be at least 500 MHz, only three sub-bands can be used in the initial deployment of multiband OFDM systems. Multiband OFDM have known advantages over other possible implementations of UWB in terms of the simplicity as well as the efficiency of its multi-path energy capture.

CHARACTERISTICS OF UWB
UWB technology has the following significant characteristics:

High Data Rates

UWB technology can do things that the existing wireless networking systems cannot. Most importantly, UWB can handle more bandwidth-intensive applications like streaming video, than either 802.11 or Bluetooth because it can send data at much faster rates. UWB technology has a data rate of roughly 100 megabits per second, with speeds up to 500 megabits per second, This compares with maximum speeds of 11 megabits per second for 802.11b (often referred to as Wi-Fi) which is the technology currently used in most wireless LANs; and 54 megabits per second for 802.11a, which is Wi-Fi at 5MHz. Bluetooth has a data rate of about 1 megabit per second.

Low Power Consumption

When transmitting data, UWB devices consume less than several tens of microwatts. That is a huge saving and the reason is that UWB transmits short impulses constantly instead of transmitting modulated waves continuously like most narrowband systems do. UWB chipsets do not require Radio Frequency (RF) to Intermediate Frequency (IF) conversion, local oscillators, mixers, and other filters. The low power consumption makes UWB ideal for use in battery-powered devices like cameras and cell phones.

Interference Immunity
Due to low power and high frequency transmission, UWBs aggregate interference is undetected by narrowband receivers. Its power spectral density is at or below narrowband thermal noise floor. The low power level thus causes no irritating interferences to existing home wireless systems. According to its First Report and Order, the FCC requires that indoor UWB devices transmit only when operating with a receiver. A device connected to AC power is not constrained to reduce or conserve power by ceasing transmission, so this restriction will eliminate unnecessary emissions. Additional tests conducted by the FCC have also demonstrated conclusively that UWB devices may be permitted to operate under a proper set of standards without causing harmful interference to other radio operations.

High Security
UWBs white-noise-like transmissions enhance security since receivers without the specific code cannot decode it. Different coding schemes, algorithms, and modulation techniques can be assigned to different users for data transmissions. Security can also be realized at the Media Access Control (MAC) level by allowing two devices to communicate with each other. Although currently no formal

Copyright Patni Computer Systems Ltd., 2004. All rights reserved.

security standard is available for UWB, the study group IEEE 802.15.3 has defined AES-128 symmetric security for payload protection and integrity.

Reasonable Range
IEEE 802.15.3a Study Group defined 10 meters as the minimum range at speed 100Mbps However, UWB can go further. The Philips Company has used its Digital Light Processor (DLP) technology in UWB device so it can operate beyond 45 feet at 50 Mbps for four DVD screens.

Low Complexity, Low Cost

The most attractive of UWBs advantages are of low system complexity and cost. Traditional carrierbased technologies modulate and demodulate complex analog carrier waveforms. In contrast, UWB systems are made of "all-digital" with minimal RF or microwave electronics. The inherent RF simplicity in UWB designs make the systems highly frequency adaptive and enable them to be positioned anywhere within the RF spectrum. Also home UWB wireless devices do not need transmitting power amplifier. This is a great advantage over narrowband architectures that require amplifiers with significant power back-off to support high-order modulation waveforms for high data rates. The cost of placing UWB technology inside a consumer electronics device - is $20, compared with $40 for 802.11b and $65 for 802.11a.

DISRUPTIVE TECHNOLOGY
UWB is seen as a significant competitor to 802.11a in the commercial sector and is considered as the next generation Bluetooth by analysts. The real question facing UWB now is whether it can break into a market already dominated by two existing wireless networking standards:

Bluetooth, used for short-range wireless personal area networks (WPANs) 802.11, used in wider local area networks (WLANs).

Characteristics of UWB such as high data rates, low power consumption, reasonable ranges, low complexity and low cost are helping this technology to gain momentum and become a potential threat to existing wireless networking technologies. However, helped by its immunity to interference, the industry is looking at peaceful coexistence of UWB with other wireless technologies.

APPLICATION AREAS FOR UWB

Some of the potential areas considered for UWB application are:

Imaging and Printing

In terms of data transfer in computing applications, UWB has an opportunity to supplant wired USB 2.0 for bandwidth-intensive imaging and printing applications.

Radar in Automotive Industry

A compelling application for UWB is radar in the automotive industry. It is ideally suited for collision avoidance, detecting the movement and location of objects near a vehicle, improving airbag activation and suspension settings. Studies prove conclusively that UWB will not interfere with GPS, especially as the first cars to have collision avoidance will be the same premium models that also host GPS-based Telematics systems. This will be important in North America, as safety is a key

Copyright Patni Computer Systems Ltd., 2004. All rights reserved.

driver in the automobile industry, with airbags, GPS and E-911 emergency calling legislation. Barriers to the start-up focusing on this sector are quite tough as:

UWB devices will have to support a wide range of automotive operating temperature and failure rate Design cycle for automotive projects is quite long; measured in number of years, dealing with the tier one vendor, carmaker, design standards (QS9000), car trials (winter/summer tests) and production ramp-up. This all could be resource intensive and exhaustive First cars to use it will be low-volume premium models, limiting early revenue opportunities Car makers are also very conservative, and would be wary of working with startups, but as a secondary market, it would be possible to work in the automotive industry via a module partner who already has a supply relationship with the tier-1 vendor or carmaker.

Security applications
Applications such as ground penetrating radar (GPR), through-wall surveillance, appear attractive given today's focus on detection, but are best handled by established systems companies.

Tracking applications
Applications involving the tracking of children, personnel, equipment and inventory, to an accuracy of less than one inch, are attractive, especially as UWB can work indoors (factories, shopping malls), unlike GPS. However, a number of things must be borne in mind in tracking applications:

The UWB device may require greater transmitting power owing to the amount of noise in an industrial setting Wide temperature range operation may be required for some environments Many tracking applications will be adequately satisfied by using cheaper RFID tags.

Wireless Home Networks

Typically, a wireless home network should provide connection among various electronic consumer devices such as PC, MP3 player, digital camera, printer, scanner, High-Definition TV (HDTV) and video game console. Some esoteric requirements such as home control appliances are also finding interest and adoption. However, the current popular usage of home networking is sharing data from PC to PC and from PCs to peripherals. With increased customer demand for home control, multiplayer gaming, and video distributions, significant efforts are being invested in building solutions around UWB enabled home networks.

Copyright Patni Computer Systems Ltd., 2004. All rights reserved.

Figure 2: A wireless home network

Todays wireless home networks are directly connected to a broadband via cable or xDSL modem, and cover the entire domestic area from one point of access. This is usually referred to as the residential gateway. This is a mono-cluster approach, which may be cost effective but is ineffective for whole house coverage. With the right wireless networking solution, home connectivity applications will continue to grow. For instance, an entire home theater environment could be constructed without cables, and it would completely replicate the wired experience. Additionally, home theater source content, such as the DVD player, could be broadcasted to another TV in a separate room in the house. With the right wireless solution, technology will have the opportunity to follow users throughout their home so that they can access content from any room. Broadband content from cable, satellite and ADSL service providers is difficult to route within the home without installing cables. With a wireless network, a single set-top box or gateway could distribute all the broadband content. Additionally, the set-top box could route Internet access traffic from multiple users within the home to the single broadband connection. To provide seamless no-wire communications between home electronic devices, it is vital that technology offers:

High data throughput Low power consumption Interference immunity Security Reasonable range Low cost.

Characteristics such as high data throughput, low power consumption, interference immunity, high security, reasonable range, and low cost, make UWB highly suitable for home networks.

STANDARDIZATION
The IEEE 802.15 working group develops personal area network consensus standards for short distance wireless personal area networks (WPANs). Task group 3 has developed a standard (IEEE 802.15.3) to deliver data rates from 20 Mbps to 55 Mbps over short range (less than 10 meters)

Copyright Patni Computer Systems Ltd., 2004. All rights reserved.

WPANs. Wireless applications like Home theatre, H.323/T.120 video conferencing, Interactive applications (such as interactive gaming), and content downloading (e.g. photos, MP3, CD, movies, etc.) require data rates of more than 100 Mbps. IEEE 802.15.3 would not be able to provide the data rates necessary to support many of these applications. In November 2001, an additional task group within IEEE 802.15, Task Group 3a (TG3a), was formed to identify a higher speed physical layer alternative that could support data rates between 110 Mbps and 480 Mbps over short ranges of less than 10 meters. The February 2002 FCC approval of UWB devices prompted many companies to consider UWB radio when proposing physical layers to IEEE 802.15.3a. TG3a established technical requirements and selection criteria for a WPAN physical layer in December 2002 and is currently reviewing proposals or presentations submitted by various companies (including Time Domain, Intel, Texas Instruments, XtremeSpectrum). The figure below shows the TG3a timeline for 802.15.3a.

Figure 3: TG3a timeline for IEEE 802.15.3a

After defining the technical requirements and selection criteria for a WPAN physical layer (finalized in December 2002), Task Group 3a released a Call for Proposals (CFP), requesting alternate physical layer proposals. At the March 2003 meeting of IEEE 802.15 (which took place in Dallas, Texas), TG3a began hearing presentations from various companies for WPAN standards proposals that employ UWB systems at the physical layer. The second round of proposals was presented at the May 2003 meeting. After the final round of presentations, the task group would begin the down selection process. The drafting and voting process was scheduled to be completed by November 2003. If the standardization process finishes according to this timeline, high data rate WPAN devices with UWB IEEE 802.15.3a could be available before 2005. TG3a has set out to develop a flexible standard which will enable high data rate WPAN (110 Mbps at 10m, 200 Mbps at 4m, and 480 Mbps at an unspecified distance) over a cost effective architecture. This new standard will enable a broad range of applications including the wireless transmission of images and video. Another area ready for standardization is the modulation scheme to ensure device and vendor interoperability. Interoperability is critical if UWB proponents have to follow in the steps of 802.11, with its highly successful Wi-Fi (Wireless Fidelity) interoperability branding campaign. Out of the several proposals being debated, the two major contenders led by alliances from multiple companies are trying to convince the FCC to accept one of the two techniques, namely,) XtremeSpectrum,

Copyright Patni Computer Systems Ltd., 2004. All rights reserved.

Motorola and Parthus-Cerva led DS-CDMA, and, Intel and Texas Instruments led Multiband OFDM. These have been described in detail in the section How UWB works UWB signal transport options above. Multiband OFDM has advantages over other possible implementations of UWB, in terms of simplicity and efficiency of its multi-path energy capture. However, given the youth of the industry, vendors can still probably count on selling both the access point and the node until one modulation technique gains critical mass.

WiMedia
WiMedia is another standard (efforts of WiMedia Alliance www.wimedia.org) generating lot of interest. The focus on WiMedia is on creating ad-hoc, interoperable networks for audio, video and computing equipment such as camcorders, digital cameras, speakers, and home theatre systems.

Figure 4: WiMedia Protocol Stack Layers

WiMedia defines a series of application profiles, such as digital imaging device and video recorder, that sit on top of the transport, control and service discovery protocols. These in turn sit on top of the IEEE 802.15.3 Media Access and Physical layer definitions (see Figure 4). The 802.15.3 MAC is very important in that it attempts to provide an ease of use, quality of service (QoS) and security framework for a high-data rate WPAN. QoS is enabled by using a TDMA based system that is managed by a network controller node. When a device requests a certain amount of bandwidth, the host controller grants specific time slots during which the devices may transmit data. The standard also addresses security by incorporating a security framework that currently supports three public key encryption techniques (RSA_OEP, NTRUEncrypt an ECMQV). The reasoning behind specifying a security framework rather than a single security implementation is to avoid the minor disaster suffered by 802.11b when Wireless Equivalent Privacy (WEP) was designed into the specification and then was determined to be quite lacking and vulnerable to attack. Currently, UWB is only proposed as an alternate physical layer for WiMedia, the official supported physical layer is an Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) narrowband system that is the same as used in IEEE 802.11g that offers 22Mbps at 70 meters and 55Mbps at 10 meters. The caution here is that multiple physical layers can lead to interoperability problems; unless competing UWB vendors can agree on a modulation scheme quickly, the well-defined 802.11g narrowband implementation may win.

Copyright Patni Computer Systems Ltd., 2004. All rights reserved.

FACTS AND FINDINGS ABOUT UWB

Following are some interesting observations about UWB:

According to Gartners report on Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies published in July 2003, UWB lies in the Technology Trigger zone. It would take approximately another 2 to 3 years for UWB to start climbing its slope of enlightenment when most of the standardization would have been formalized and non-serious players kicked out. It also indicates that UWB would take between 5 to 10 years to reach its plateau of productivity where it would be deployed and be available widely. Park Associates believes that real deployment of UWB is not likely to happen until the 802.15.3a standardization process has been formalized. Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), in its 2003 publication Five Technologies to Watch, has the following to say about UWB:

With the first proprietary UWB devices expected to be on the market by the end of 2003, proponents say the technology could lead to a new wave of portable and home entertainment products, once common technical standards are developed. They especially see UWB as ideal for home networking products, flat panel displays, car telematics devices and radar equipment, among other things. Some even believe that UWB could eventually compete with existing and nextgeneration mobile-phone technology. But as the UWB technical standards are still under development, the technologys impact will not be felt for at least another two to three years. In-Stat/MDR predicts that standards-based UWB products will not start hitting the consumer electronics market until late 2005 and 2006. The research group sees hardware shipments spike to nearly 2 million units in 2006 and nearly 6 million in 2007.

Kursat Kimyacioglu, Director of Wireless Business Development for Philips Semiconductors, has the following to say about UWB in his November 13, 2003 article UWB Remains True to its Timetable on UWBInsider (www.uwbinsider.com):

A great deal has been accomplished in the implementation of UWB as a worldwide standard and there have been no detours as UWB stays on its three-year track of adopting a standard by early 2005. Currently Multiband OFDM is the leading standard proposal with maximum momentum behind it and proponents believe that products based on Multiband OFDM give UWB the best opportunity to succeed if backed by the industry and standards. The major push point is arriving at a common UWB platform consisting of a physical (PHY) layer and a media access control (MAC) layer. Above that, the convergence layers, each specific _ _ to their own connections be it 1394, wireless USB, Bluetooth, Ethernet or others all must embrace the same platform. Simply put, UWB needs an all-encompassing answer to be welcomed by the PC and Consumer Electronics (CE) worlds as well as reach wider-spread market acceptance. The CE industry plans to bring out standalone, non-standardized products based on UWB. But the market for such offerings is very limited and it will not remain for long since once UWB becomes generally accepted, end-users will start demanding increased functionality and standardized connectivity or better still, functionality to be embedded in feature-rich products that need to interoperate with products from other vendors.

Copyright Patni Computer Systems Ltd., 2004. All rights reserved.

10

Cell phone giants Motorola and Nokia both recently announced that UWB would play important roles in their future generations of telephones. As picture-taking with phones goes from novelty to normal, these devices will need ever-improving file transfer capabilities so users can upload their snapshots to PC and CE gear.

Parks Associates in their white paper The Market for Ultra-Wideband Solutions published in 2003, say: The delay in the standards development is likely to keep major players primarily in the CE space from deploying the solution as quickly as previously thought. We do believe, however, that the PC space which we believe benefits most from the early rollout of UWB connectivity will continue to drive its early development.

Once the PC manufacturers have adopted UWB as a short-range cable replacement solution, we believe that manufacturers of digital cameras, camcorders, and mobile CE devices such as MP3 players will follow suit. We anticipate cable-free and high-speed connections between the PC and such devices.

Figure 5: Potential Markets for UWB

The fixed CE space including such platforms as digital and HDTV receivers, A/V receivers, speakers, home theater projectors and set-top boxes will be the last segment to experience high penetration of UWB for several reasons. First, because the early target for network-capable CE platforms are high-end and custom installed solutions, we anticipate some early skepticism about using wireless solutions for connectivity between nodes and believe that it will take some time to convince manufacturers and custom installers that wireless connections can provide the same reliability and quality as wired solutions. Furthermore, we anticipate that IEEE 1394 (FireWire) connections will become more commonplace in the coming years, and manufacturers may tend to lean toward this solution first, and wireless second. The set-top box market may provide a clear indication FireWires growth opportunity, as a recent agreement between the cable industry and CEA could lead to vastly increased FireWire products. Finally, we are already seeing the trend for point-to-point delivery of audio and video content using Wi-Fi and other existing wireless solutions. Granted, Wi-Fi itself is not optimized to support high-quality HDTV streams, but advances in compression and transrating techniques for video among silicon vendors means that PC-to-CE point-to-point networks for video distribution are becoming more commonplace. We anticipate that a growing number of manufacturers will adopt Wi-Fi as perhaps an intermediate solution for their point-to-point networking endeavors. UWB implementation will come later.

Since standards-based UWB products will not hit the CE marker until late 2005, the current UWB products will be mostly non-standards based UWB chipsets.

Copyright Patni Computer Systems Ltd., 2004. All rights reserved.

11

UWB is not limited to RF applications. Work is already under way to demonstrate UWB over coax. The special restrictions by FCC do not apply as coax is a shielded media,. Early results suggest maximum data rates of 2 Gbps over 1500 to 2000 ft of cable and through repeaters. If successful, UWB could ride over the existing infrastructure, boasting data rates of a few gigabits per second without interfering with legacy connections. Work with twisted pair shows 10 to 30 Mbps over as much as 20,000 ft. Twisted pair, however, is unshielded, so the wire turns into an antenna.

CHALLENGES AND REGULATIONS

The lack of consumer awareness of UWB may mean that UWB companies must spend more in marketing than their competitors. Currently, no standard UWB technology exists, whereas other competing technologies have well-established standards. This implies that UWB companies may face greater risks and larger initial costs than their competitors. Many analysts predict that the current wireless home network technologies including 802.11 are strong enough to compete with UWB technology in the long term. Besides standards issues, regulation and government policy in UWB will affect significantly in UWB developers strategic planning. The FCC has approved the use of UWB technology for short-range personal communications, requiring indoor or short-range peer-to-peer operation in the frequency band between 3GHz and 6GHz, and below the FCC Part B emission limits for digital devices. This limitation keeps UWB noise out of the sensitive areas occupied by GPS, cellular phone and WLAN systems, and clears the way for development of short-range high-speed wireless technology for network devices. These requirements are stringent enough to prevent UWB mischief, but provide an adequate playground for companies to trial and deploy their products. To allow further development and adoption of UWB so that it could be used for LAN and WAN, the FCC needs to consider pushing the lower boundary down below 3.1 GHz and allow higher power. The FCC promised to revisit its ruling in 6-12 months. Recently, the FCC created a Spectrum Policy Task Force to assist the Commission in evaluating policies regarding interference protection, spectral efficiency, effective public safety communications, and various spectrum usage models.

WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS

UWBs technical characteristics including its high data throughput, low power consumption and low cost, place it in an advantageous position in the wireless home market. From the regulatory perspective, UWB is experiencing a supportive spectrum management reform. The two key drivers for this technology will be a favorable regulation and steady growing consumer demand. Even though the FCC now allows UWB devices to distribute audio and video within homes, an integrated spectrum policy approach isdesired. An -unavailable standard will mean more risks for start-up UWB companies in launching the businesses than companies with mature technologies. In the short term, the FCC should allow a wider frequency range and stronger power so that UWB can be integrated with not only home wireless networks, but also with LAN and WAN domains. Although current wireless home networking technologies such as 802.11b and HomeRF are insufficient for multiple simultaneous voice and audio stream communications, they are fine handling current data communication demands. Therefore, it will not be easy for UWB to catch up and achieve significant market share in wireless home the networking market in the near future. In the

Copyright Patni Computer Systems Ltd., 2004. All rights reserved.

12

long run, the rapidly growing demand for wireless home multimedia-compliant network will create a potentially huge market for UWB. While 802.11 technologies dominate the wireless data communication market, UWB is likely to prevail in the wireless multimedia communication market eventually. If demand for wireless multimedia applications continues to grow and appropriate regulations and standards are implemented, UWB has a great potential to change the future landscape of the wireless home network market.

REFERENCES & FURTHER READING

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. Ultra-Wideband: Wireless Without Compromise A Renaissance In The Making by XtremeSpectrum. (http://www.xtremespectrum.com/PDF/UWBWhitePaper.pdf) Ultra-wide Band is Ultra-fast: Benoy George Thomas. (http://www.pcquest.com/content/technology/default.asp) Understanding Ultrawideband Wireless: Gartner report by Martin Reynolds. The Role of Ultra Wideband in Wireless Home Networks: Qing Hua, Jonghoon Shin, Sangbong Sung, and Wen Teng. Five Technologies to Watch: Consumer Electronics Association publication. (http://www.ce.org/publications/books_references/n5Tech_Watch.pdf) WiMedia Alliance Overview. (http://www.wimedia.org/about/WiMedia_One_Page_final_Connections03.pdf) Ultrawideband: the next wireless panacea? article in Oct 17, 2002 EDN publication techTrends by Nicolas Carvotta, Technical Editor. (http://www.uwb.org/files/October2002/EDNOct1702.pdf)

Copyright Patni Computer Systems Ltd., 2004. All rights reserved.

13

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mohit Lad
Mohit Lad is a Communication Engineer with 7 years of IT and Telecom experience. He has worked on technology evaluation, prototyping and technical architecting for Internet Telephony and Telecom related applications. His areas of interest include IP Telephony, Wireless Communications Technologies and Messaging systems. He is currently working as a Technical Lead in the Wireless Technology group of the Product and Technology Initiatives division of Patni. Mohit holds a B.E. in Computer Engineering.

ABOUT PATNI
Patni is a global IT Consultancy and Services provider with revenues in excess of US $188 million and over 6500 professionals. Our six offshore development facilities and more than 22 international offices offer strategic advantage to several Global 2000 companies. Patni delivers high quality, reliable and cost-effective software solutions to clients in the Insurance, Banking & Financial Services, Manufacturing, Energy & Utilities, Hospitality, Retail and Healthcare industries. Our focus areas include eBusiness, enterprise applications, embedded solutions and enterprise systems management, while our service offerings comprise Business Process Outsourcing, re-engineering, application development and support. These capabilities are complemented by our alliances with leading software vendors like Microsoft, IBM, SAP, Oracle, BaaN, Siebel, BroadVision, webMethods, Tibco, SuniForce, Business Objects, Cognos. An ISO 9001:2000 certified organization, assessed enterprise wide at SEI-CMMi Level 5 and P-CMM Level 3, Patni has also integrated Six Sigma techniques to focus on continuous, measurable process improvements. For more information, visit http://www.patni.com or contact mktg@patni.com.

Copyright Patni Computer Systems Ltd., 2004. All rights reserved.

14