Is ultra wideband (UWB) just another method to communicate wirelessly? At first look, it may seem so. For line-powered devices such as set-tops, advanced TVs, PCs and printers, it is a high speed method for transferring video and data without cables, enabling both aesthetics and freedom to decide where devices are located. And UWB allows mobile devices such as cell phones and camcorders to interact with the line-powered world without cables. But, according to ABI Research principal analyst Alan Varghese, in a new study called “Ultrawideband – Standards, Technology, OEM Strategy and Markets,” UWB is about much more than high speed wireless transfer. In the history of wireless communications, the first phase used analog modulations such as AM and FM to transmit data. The next captured the benefits that digital methods such as BPSK, QUAM, FSK and their variations allowed.
The last phase was to maximize the number of users within a band of spectrum. This was accomplished through progressively more complex schemes such as FDMA, TDMA and CDMA. Today, the wireless space stands at a crossroads. With immense demands for wireless communications, there is a troubling shortage of radio spectrum: we have squeezed out all we can get through advanced modulation, coding and multiple access schemes. Enter UWB. Its extremely low power and wideband allow coexistence, taking us back to the dawn of the wireless age when spectrum was plentiful and all we needed was technology to take advantage of it. The electronic chip set and equipment company involved in the UWB space are making history all over again. Those that are not may be getting left out of a new chapter in wireless communications.