The Ultra Wideband Blog

WiMedia Continues to Do Its Job

Testing and registering Physical Layer chipsets (PHYs) is one of the most critical components of the WiMedia Alliance's charter.  By doing this, they ensure that compatibility and co-existence between all devices that employ WiMedia standards including Wireless USB and Bluetooth 3.0 products. 

This week, the WiMedia Alliance announced PHY registration for four companies: Alereon, Inc., Realtek Semiconductor Corporation, Tzero Technologies and Wisair Ltd. These companies successfully tested their chipsets against the WiMedia spec and were able to successfully interoperate.

For more information on the WiMedia certification program, visit www.wimedia.org.

HDCP Approved Retransmission Technology

Content protection continues to be one of the biggest issues facing service providers, electronics manufacturers and the content providers themselves. This is especially true as new technologies become available for the distribution of high-definition video wirelessly and over over coax cabling.

Several months ago, the Digital Content Protection organization (DCP LLC), licensor of the HDCP content protection technology specification, asked for submissions of these new technologies for review and certification as part of a new Approved Retransmission Technology program. They used a rigorous set of criteria.  And thus far, only one manufacturer has stood up to the test -- Tzero. 

This week, Tzero becomes the first manufacturer to have its products approved for use with content protected by HDCP. In fact, DCP LLC has granted Tzero’s ZeroWire™ authorization as an Approved Retransmission Technology for both wireless and wired implementations.  Read more. 

More on UWB over Coax

Check out the latest courtesy of the editors at Digital TV DesignLine and Sigma Designs. 

According to the recent piece, "MoCA and HomePlug were two early technologies that gained quick review. However both had their drawbacks and faced several hurdles and challenges which lead service providers to look for alternative technologies that would meet their requirements for whole home media distribution." Enter WiMedia-standard-based ultra wideband.  The article further states that they're seeing 320 - 400 Mbps over distances of 100 meters.  Not bad at all. 

Read the full article by visiting www.digitaltvdesignline.com.

Not Just for Wireless Anymore

One of the most significant advantages to ultra wideband is its ability to operate both wirelessly and over wires. Some UWB suppliers have talked about this in the past. But none have delivered it using a WiMedia-standard approach. Tzero announced such a standards-based solution today.

This new chipset -- dubbed the ZeroWire TZC7200 -- works just as well over the air as it does over existing coax cabling. Think of it as the next-generation MoCA and WiFi combined.  It's able to deliver link reliability and performance unheard of by either technology.  MoCA maybe can get to sustained data rates over 100 Mbps and it's anyone's guess what can be sustained by WiFi.  Tzero's UWB chipset is capable of 300 Mbps, plenty for multiple high-definition video streams throughout the home. 

With this solution, expect to see service providers and others delivering "whole home DVRs" and other killer products in the near future.  Read more. 

802.11n or Bust?

That's the question asked by BusinessWeek's Cliff Edwards in a recent blog posting.  He points out, quite rightly, that WiFi has a significant problem: the lack of what's known in the industry as Quality of Service or QoS.  Instead, WiFi uses a contention-based access scheme which is exactly what it sounds like, everybody that's trying to use the network must fight for it.  That works okay for data but it's death for video.  As Cliff says, "Since most wireless routers aren't smart enough to prioritize data streams, the more devices that are connected the slower the connection speed for all those devices. With video, the issue is particularly vexing since any data loss during transmission of these large files leads to image stuttering." Or worse.

Where does ultra wideband come down on this?  The WiMedia standard allows for bandwidth reservations for applications like video, ensuring the delivery of a high-quality viewing experience. 

Read Rick Merritt

If you're not reading Rick Merritt's blog, and you're tracking the world of connectivity, you need to.  He's up to speed on just about everything going on in the space and has some very interesting insights. 

I do take issue, however, with one recent post from Rick that talked about the Park's Connections Conference.  In it, he contrasted two panels: one that featured the views of wireless vendors and the other that focused on those of the telcos and cable providers.  His point was that the wireless wags need to pay attention to the cable camp that, guess what, is very comfortable with wires. 

My issue isn't that I disagree with Rick's point, frankly I agree with him whole heartedly.  But Rick should have noted that at least one wireless technology -- UWB -- has already demonstrated its ability to work over wires, coax in particular. Several suppliers of residential gateways, routers and set-top boxes are working to productize UWB over coax as an alternative to MoCA.  And the WiMedia Alliance has created a study group (led by one of the major telcos) to implement this as part of the UWB standard.   

Ultra Wideband Approved as an ISO Standard

As part of Ecma 368 and 369, the WiMedia ultra wideband standards are now officially global standards. This was announced this week and published on the Ecma website under their Wireless Proximity Systems section. This is another huge step forward for the ultra wideband community. It should help accelerate the adoption and deployment of WiMedia-standards-based products in Europe and throughout the world.

The Importance of a Standards-based Approach

You’ve heard the arguments before. Standards-based approaches are good for markets because they enable multi-vendor sourcing and reduce costs, ensure compatibility and interoperability. But in wireless communications and particularly in the emerging UWB market it’s even more critical to be standards based.

Imagine as a consumer bringing home a new non-standard UWB product. Set it up and it seems to work fine. Then go to your new Wireless USB printer. It worked well before but now it doesn’t. The non-standard product is interfering. Put on your Bluetooth headset and try to call tech support. It no longer works either. Which product do you return? If you’re like many consumers, you return them all.

Imagine being the retailer having to take all those products back. You can’t even begin to diagnose the problem. Every year, retailers receive more than $15 billion in returns because of problems like this. With nearly 300 companies soon to ship WiMedia standards-compliant products – and another 7,000 companies adopting this standard for next-generation Bluetooth devices – you can understand the magnitude of the problem that could be created by even one non-standard product.

Non-standard communications by devices result in interference and chaos, and greatly reduce the likelihood of widespread adoption. We urge all companies involved in the UWB market to take a standards-based approach, and participate in WiMedia compatibility and interoperability tests.

BusinessWeek's Technology & You

We had the chance to talk with Steve Wildstrom from BusinessWeek a few days ago regarding his column entitled Juicing Up Home Networks.  The focus of the piece was on two powerline networking products and his tests of their effectiveness for distributing video content around the home. 

Steve made a number of good points in his column and in the discussion.  He differentiated between the marketing claims of maximum throughput for powerline -- which were purported to be 200 megabits per second (Mbps) -- and the average throughput which proved to be dramatically less, somewhere in the range of 12 to 20 Mbps.  He talked about the different types of video, both standard definition or broadcast TV quality, and high definition, and the demands these two classes of content put on a network. High-definition video, according to Steve "choked" the powerline products he tested.   

So if powerline isn't the solution to distributing high-definition video around the home, what is? Obviously, we believe that UWB will play a significant role in this application across a range of devices -- both wireless and wired.  Steve expects to write more about this topic in the future.

By the way, if you haven't listened to Steve's Technology & You podcast , definitely give it a try. 

Another Milestone

Last week, ultra wideband passed another major milestone with the announcement of the finalization of the WiMedia Alliance's Certification program.  One of the organization's charters is to provide coexistence and interoperability between the different applications and products that use UWB standards and specifications.  And this new certification program goes a long way to helping ensure that interoperability and fuel the growth in adoption of the technology.

As part of the program, the WiMedia Alliance also conducts organized compatibility and interoperability testing for UWB products.  They test both the PHYs (or Physical Layer implementations) as well as the platforms.  Last week, six companies -- including Tzero -- received initial registration of their PHYs, paving the way for the next major milestone of platform certification later this year. 

Look for more information about certification on the WiMedia Alliance website.