The world’s largest electronics firms are reported to have opted to use Bluetooth wireless technology to send video between devices in the home.
The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) has picked sides in the battle between two competing UWB (Ultra Wideband) short-range, high-speed wireless technologies, choosing the Wi-Media Alliance’s MB-OFDM (multi-band orthogonal frequency division multiplexing). The companies said they will use the short-range radio system to link TVs, video players and computers.
Bluetooth Technology and UWB Solution Enables Wireless High Speed and Ad-Hoc Applications While Maintaining Low Power.
Those who are fans of Bluetooth wireless technology will have something great to look forward to as the technology gets a major speed boost thanks to a new initiative pushed forward by those responsible for the Bluetooth specification.
The two associations, which contain members like tech heavyweights Intel, Nokia and Microsoft, said they will cooperate to have Bluetooth-enabled devices by 2008 that can send and receive multimedia at speeds that are more than 100 times faster than current Bluetooth.
The decision is expected to determine how hundreds of millions of televisions, video recorders and personal computers will be connected without wires by the turn of the decade. Until now, the global electronics industry has been struggling to choose a single wireless connection that is fast enough to connect a new generation of digital devices.
Need for Speed:
UWB has been touted as a technology that ultimately might help replace the wires connecting PCs to USB devices, such as keyboards; mice; and external hard drives.
WiMedia’s version of ultra-wideband (UWB) wireless — a technology so promising that the U.S. Army has done research on it for use in the field — will be integrated with current Bluetooth technology to help Bluetooth better handle large amounts of data.
This new version of Bluetooth technology will meet the high-speed demands of synchronizing and transferring large amounts of data as well as enabling high quality video and audio applications for portable devices, multi-media projectors and television sets.
At the same time, Bluetooth technology will continue catering to the needs of very low power applications such as mice, keyboards and mono headsets, enabling devices to select the most appropriate physical radio for the application requirements, thereby offering the best of both worlds.
While Bluetooth, commonly used to link mobile phones and other portable devices at short range, transmits data at speeds up to 1 Mbps, UWB can reach speeds up to 100 Mbps. As mobile devices grow more powerful, industry observers say, higher data rates will be required to deliver on consumer expectations for performance.
The SIG plans to have an initial specification completed in the first quarter of 2007. After that it will enter a testing phase, with final completion of the specification expected in the third or fourth quarter of 2007. Devices with the new technology could start shipping in early 2008, said Michael Foley, executive director of the SIG.
“After speaking with our members, we have heard overwhelmingly that Wi-Media was the version of the technology they wanted to see enabled within the Bluetooth spec,” Foley said. “There was not one thing in particular, it was a collection of features, or advantages that made us choose.”
Noting that Bluetooth has not been a huge success so far, IDC analyst Abner Germanow said that adding UWB is a smart move. "The range of Bluetooth is limited by regulatory constraints, and UWB is well suited for personal networks," he said.
Germanow cited two significant challenges to integrating the two technologies. "In increasing bandwidth, the authentication/authorization piece is critical in identifying what types of traffic are on the network, and that has not yet been solved by Bluetooth," he said.
The other issue is interoperability among a range of devices, a challenge that Germanow said is more critical than putting more bits through the network. "The upside is that WiMedia does a lot of interoperability testing, and that is what Bluetooth needs."
The SIG is targeting the high-speed version of Bluetooth for synchronizing and transferring large amounts of data and enabling high-quality video and audio applications for portable devices, multimedia projectors and television sets. Mobile devices such as high-end smart phones, which transfer large amounts of data, are expected to be the first to incorporate UWB-based Bluetooth. Headsets and mice are expected to use existing Bluetooth specifications until costs and power consumption of UWB-based Bluetooth come down.
Compatibility Is Key:
The decision to go with WiMedia followed an evaluation of UWB options by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group, which said that backwards compatibility with some 500 million Bluetooth devices currently on the market was a determining factor.
Foley said that the development work will focus on keeping Bluetooth’s strengths, like low power consumption and security features, in the new version. It would also be compatible with the current Bluetooth format which is already installed in more than 500 million devices. The installed base of Bluetooth devices is projected to surpass one billion units by the end of 2006, he said.
The SIG said it will work to ensure that future Bluetooth high-speed devices are backward compatible with existing devices.
Before finalizing a specification, Foley acknowledged the SIG and the Wi-Media Alliance must first overcome regulatory and technological hurdles.
The two groups said they have decided to use the unlicensed radio spectrum above 6GHz for UWB-based Bluetooth. “We believe utilizing a higher band, in the 6-9GHz spectrum, will give us a much better opportunity of getting global regulatory acceptance,” Foley said.
The cost of UWB-based Bluetooth will initially be about 10 to 15 times more than the current cost of Bluetooth, said Stephen Wood, president of the Wi-Media Alliance and technology strategist at Intel Corp. But Foley expects that price to eventually come down to the current costs of Bluetooth.
Over time as we see much tighter integration into the solution, prices will come down. I expect the price curve will be similar to what you saw with the original Bluetooth radios. The original Bluetooth radios were not at the price they are at today, Foley said.
Foley also expects that the optimal range for UWB-based Bluetooth will be similar to the existing Bluetooth technology. “About 10 meters is what we are targeting,” he said. “We think for many of the applications the sweet spot is around 100Mgbits/p/s at the 10 meter range.”
The WiMedia’s members include HP, Intel, Kodak, Microsoft, Nokia, Philips, Samsung Electronics, Sony, and Texas Instruments.
The Bluetooth group is backed by Agere, Ericsson, Intel, IBM, Microsoft, Motorola, Nokia and Toshiba.
The Pioneers:
Bluetooth, invented by Swedish telecoms group Ericsson in the 1990s, is more than just a wireless connection. It also contains security features and protocols to connect many different devices in a small area. This is a key difference with simpler Wi-Fi short-range wireless internet connections.
The Bluetooth community has been extremely successful at generating strong brand recognition among users of high volume, lower data rate computer, telecommunications and consumer products, said Stephen R. Wood, president, WiMedia Alliance and UWB technology strategist at Intel. The WiMedia Alliance looks forward to providing suppliers of Bluetooth products with a higher speed technology path that will enable the next generation of exciting new portable data applications.
"Companies working with Bluetooth technology want to stay one step ahead of consumer demand and deliver a wireless technology that meets the global market needs for the personal area network — today and in the future," said John Barr, Ph. D., chairman of the board of directors, Bluetooth SIG, and director, standards realization, Motorola. "There is now an opportunity for he WiMedia Alliance to work with the Bluetooth SIG to define the Bluetooth technology/UWB implementation that will work for the Bluetooth SIG, our members and end users."
Next Steps:
The Bluetooth SIG Core Specification Working Group Charter and UWB Feature Requirements Document (FRD) have been approved by the Bluetooth SIG Board of Directors, signaling that work may commence. The requirements set by the UWB study group in the UWB FRD define what has to be done to create a solution appropriate for adoption by the Bluetooth SIG. Both groups will immediately begin work together on the specification draft within the Bluetooth SIG Core Specification Working Group.
The Bluetooth SIG estimates this process to last approximately one year, with the first Bluetooth technology/UWB solution chip sets available for prototyping in a year from now.