Ultra-Wideband Chipmaker to Pursue Higher Power Levels Above 6 GHz
Ultra-wideband (UWB) chipmaker Alereon, which predicts UWB could have a breakthrough year in 2006, plans to ask the FCC for permission to transmit at higher power levels at the upper ends of the radio spectrum. Alereon, perhaps in tandem with other UWB firms, plans to ask the FCC to revisit parts of its UWB rules, Alereon CEO Eric Broockman told us. But any proposal for higher power levels for UWB is likely to be controversial.
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Allowing more power for UWB transmission above 6 GHz would be a “really useful” FCC step, Broockman said. “Like any radio, the signal-noise ratio or the distance the radio can go is directly related to power levels,” he said: “The higher the frequency you have, the more path loss. There’s a lot of nothing above 6 GHz. But the power we're allowed transmit is the same power we're allowed to transmit at 3 or 4 GHz.”
“I'm sure there will be concerns,” a regulatory source who works on UWB issues said: “The satellite people would be very concerned. There are government satellites in the 8 GHz range.” Increasing power levels also would raise out of band emissions issues, the source said.
This year will see the first deployment of products with UWB chips, with the market likely to grow rapidly, Broockman said. UWB product shipments will be in the single digit millions in 2006, growing to 200 million in 2009, he said.
UWB will coexist with Bluetooth and 802.11n, the newest Wi-Fi standard, Broockman said. UWB will come to stand in for cords connecting to a computer’s USB port, with Wi-Fi the replacement for the old Ethernet connection. The first UWB connections rolled out this year likely will be used to let business users easily connect luggable laptops -- increasingly commonly used as desktop replacements -- to networks and peripheral devices.
“You care about peripherals,” Broockman said. “What would be nice is not to go through the whole dock and undock to get to them, all the hibernate and sleep. With a wireless hub you can talk to your printer, you can talk to an external hard drive… You could put your laptop on the desk where you want to work and not clutter the desk with USB cables.”
In the consumer market, Broockman predicted, connections between computers and printers and other peripherals also will be a big driver - letting someone watch TV in one room while using a computer and printing a document in another room out of earshot. In China, where digital rights management issues more easily can be bypassed, Broockman expects UWB to become popular quickly for transfer of music between MP3 players.
Providing an easy connection between digital camera and computers enabling quick transfer of photos is likely to be a popular early use, Broockman said: “I can’t tell you how many very intelligent, technically savvy adults I talk to who have trouble getting pictures out of their cameras.”
UWB connections may be worked into high-end cellphones more quickly than some expect, Broockman said. “We thought it was logical cellphones would be last. Why would you want to put another radio in a cellphone? A cellphone is already hard enough to do,” he said. “But the cellphone is now a consumer fashion accessory for ages 15-25. Like any market, there is a large constituency that just likes to buy the latest, sexiest, coolest thing. If you look at that age demographic, we think people are going to be really excited about their camera phone being able to upload all those pictures in 3 seconds without having to use a wire.”