Intel Demonstrates 220Mbps Variant of UWB

MattyIce writes "InfoWorld has a story about a yet to be approved standard for a high-speed, short distance communications standard. Last year, Intel demonstrated 100MBPS speeds but they have bumped the speed up to 220MBPS this time." Fast stuff, but I imagine it'll be a long time before it comes to market. I haven't even upgraded my wireless network to 802.11g yet!

Comments

Technology

[Anonymous Coward]

Technology keeps outdating itself... but some people can never accept it.

My $1000 486 10 years ago has seen a 99.9% decrease in value.

This $20 book published in 1998 has some idiot trying to get $5 out of it.

I've seen organizations rent computers for $30/month/each just to escape this madness.

Re:Technology

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it's an open source businessmodel!

1: Write free software.
2: ?
3: Bump up from 100MBPS to 220MBPS.
4: Profit!

Another name

[Anonymous Coward]

a high-speed, short distance communications standard. isn't that called shouting?

Re:Another name

[AndroidCat]

For a high-speed, short distance communications standard, you could always adapt Pigeon Protocol (see the RFC) for use with hummingbirds.

How far does it go?

[192939495969798999]

Exactly how far away does this thing work? Does it go through walls, etc? I have never tried a wireless network, yeah I know... stuck in a cave!

Re:How far does it go?

[yehim1]

Judging from the frequency of this network, between 3.1GHz and 10.6GHz, the distance must be limited to the size of a PAN (personal area network). The article puts how useful it is to replace bluetooth as the medium of transfer for PANs (also, it solves the conflict between bluetooth 802.11b, since they use the frequency bands).

Perhaps one day we'll be able to synchronize our ipods over this connections; it beats connecting the firewire cable anytime! I can even put the ipod in the pocket. Something that we can already accomplish with bluetooh, minus the available bandwidth (and also minimizes interference with WLAN networks).

For longer radius of operation, 802.11a is suggested to be used (for example between buildings).

So?

[Dark Lord Seth]

When can I use my HDs merely by putting them within 1 meter of my comp? Screw those stupid & ugly flat cables, I want a nice, clean and wireless solution for this and I'm pretty sure allot of people with me.

Re:So?

[evilviper]

I don't understand the desire for wireless. You need to get power from somewhere, so they best you can hope for is a small, simple cable connecting things.

So, get Firewire hard drives, and you should be set.

Well ...

[TwistedKestrel]

I haven't even upgraded my wireless network to 802.11g yet!

IEEE hasn't even ratified 802.11g yet!

MBPS vs Mbps

[Skreech]

The article is talking about megabits (Mbps), not megabytes (MBps) as mentioned above. Capitalization matters on that acronym.

Lynchpin for adoption?

[Quarters]

Fast stuff, but I imagine it'll be a long time before it comes to market. I haven't even upgraded my wireless network to 802.11g yet!

The time to market for new wireless technology is connected to your personal networking topology exactly how?

That's nothing!

[AndroidCat]

Now you can buy cable from this guy that allows communications faster than light! A mere $325.00/1m, what a bargain! (It seems that Mathew Orman figured out where Einstein was wrong. [But don't they all?])

Wireless means Freedom, but cables are cheap&g

[forged]

Just earlier today I bought a FireWire 6-to-6 pins cable to plug two of my PC's back-to-back, since they're otherwise on different VLANs (one on VPN to work ond one directly on the ADSL link for personal stuff). That worked really nicely, and I'm now experiencing the joy of transfering stuff 4x faster than FastEthernet between the two machines. Cost of the cable: 25 EUR.

What a UWB device is and how it works.

[fejrskov]

Originally the term "Ultra Wide Band" designated a special modulation technique but in February 2003 the FCC approved a standard to define UWB-communication as a communication with a minimal 10-dB bandwidth of 20% of the center frequency.

The original modulation scheme associated with UWB works almost as Pulse Position Modulation (PPM): Within a certain, fixed time slot a very short pulse with high energy is emitted. The position of the pulse is decided by a in advance determined code scheme. Depending of the code scheme and the pulse position, the time slot is interpreted as containing either a 0 or a 1.

The powerfull short pulses can be shown to have a very weak and very wide representation in the frequency domain. Without knowing the coding scheme in a link, a UWB signal is thus seen as noise.

Walls and other obstacles tend to obstruct certain specific frequencies only. Since UWB signals have Ultra Wide Bandwith, UWB communication can theroretically go through all kinds of natural obstacles very easily.

The hard part in UWB is making an antenna, that can actually emit signals with this very high bandwidth. Normal antennas are designed to emit in a narrow band. Thus, to make UWB work flawlessly, a lot of research must be made to make a good antenna.

Disclaimer: EE student (only) in the field of Wireless Communication Networks.

Re:What a UWB device is and how it works.

[Eros]

I think I speak for the majority of slashdotters who aren't EE majors when I say -- WTF?

All and all it was a good attempt.

Oh is that all??

[hydrino]

I was all excited when I saw the MBPS. Now I'm only 1/8 as excited.
This isn't Fox News guys.
You all need to sit down in a room and go over the (b)bits and (B)Bytes thing....

Antenna

[Detritus]

The discone antenna is simple to construct and has very wide bandwidth.

What's the speed of this?

[SysKoll]

I see MBps (mega Byte per second) and Mbps (Mega bit per second). A byte is 8 bits. That's an order of magnitude of difference!

The standardized way of writing this unit is Mbit/s or MByte/s. Don't invent your own, use the standard units.

Re:Wireless means Freedom, but cables are cheap&am

[drinkypoo]

Freedom from wires means freedom from climbing into your attic to run cables from the living room to a back bedroom, and punching holes in the ceiling to drop the cable through.

Re:What's the point???

[fejrskov]

There's a huge market for this because since the UWB technique doesn't require carrier waves and lots of power it doesn't require all sorts of power amplification as traditional communication methods.

So why is that cool? It means that UWB can be used as an inter IC communication method, thus eliminating the need of parallel buses!

When the antennas are becoming better (higher gain), the UWB technique will expand to have a larger range, which will expand the market even further.

Re:Wireless means Freedom, but cables are cheap&am

[afidel]

Your security guy would kill you if he heard that. By bridging your unsecured PC to your VPN'd pc you have opened a door that crackers can use to get into your corporate network. The whole point of a VPN is to have a secured connection between your pc and the corporate lan that can't be used by outside sources.