Wireless at Firewire Speeds?

MeCoward writes "EETimes reporting on working group that hopes to leapfrog 802.11 to create wireless 1394 links. Initially 100mbps but aiming for 400mbps." I don't expect to see this anytime soon, but it certainly makes things like wireless HDTV feasible. Sure would be cool. Of course Bluetooth is only now just catching on, so imagine how long it'll be before this becomes practical.

Comments

Range, bandwidth and security...

[WegianWarrior]

Heberling is also working with the 802.15.3a committee attempting to set standards for an ultrawideband physical layer chip that could transmit at data rates of 100 Mbits/second initially but be upgraded to versions at 200 and 400 Mbits/s, albeit at ranges of 10 meters or less.

So... I can have a massive bandwidth without any cabling - as long as I don't move the devices further apart than a cable can reach. Somehow, while fiddling with cables can be a hazzle now and then, I think I'll stick to cables. One reason for this is security - unless this technology relies on LOS (line Of Sight), which would make it even less an atractive replacement for cabling, people would likely be able to pick up the signals from a much further distance than the aforementioned ten meters...

...unless I decide to utilise some of that bandwidth - along with CPU-time - to encrypt my signal... which I wouldn't have that much reason to do with a piece of cabel in the first place.

Still, early days and all that - we'll see just where and how this ends up in a few years time.

Re:Range, bandwidth and security...

[the uNF cola]

The first step to encryption is NOT getting rid of duplicate data.

All encryption is, is obfuscation of data. Usually, your goal is to have a 1-1 function that takes data in, some data to use as an encryption key (initialization vector, pk, something) and your result is new data, equal in size.

Compression can be considered encryption, in that it obfuscates data. So is ROT-13. It's weak, fine, but the job is to prevent people from reading it unintentionally (like hidden answers).

Btw, compressing will save data bandwidth, but not data processing bandwidth (CPU).

High-speed PAN w/ copy protection?

[questionlp]

First, it seems that this would make record and studio execs happy since this is using IEEE 1394:

The 1394 interface is a key interconnect for sending copy protected digital video between TVs, set-tops and other systems.

So you have pretty good speed wireless connections plus some nice little bits to make sure that you may or may not be able to sniff the signal and redistribute it elsewhere.

Anyway, this seems to be the next step up from Bluetooth (which is more of a wireless replacement of USB) for connecting wireless DVD players to a projector or TV, or play media files from a wireless 1394 hard drive or a computer sitting in your AV rack.

Well...

[MachineShedFred]

"Bluetooth is only now just catching on, so imagine how long it'll be before this becomes practical. "

Bluetooth is slow. If it was 100 time faster, it would catch on faster, becuase there would be more applications for it. With less-than-megabit speeds, the only thing you would EVER want to do is serial I/O (sync stuff, keyboards), and *maybe* a mono audio stream.

The consumer electronics industry has been eyeballing FireWire (1394) for a while. It makes for one hell of an universal interconnect between all your digital devices, rather than having coax spaghetti and 20 IR or IF devices all over the place. Instead you have one FireWire hub, going to your receiver, your DVD player, your VCR, your CD changer, and your HDTV decoder, and one remote that tells one device what to tell the others...

That's my kind of home automation and control.

Re:too late?

[Anonymous Coward]

While firewire has many advantages over USB, I think it's safe to say that after the Ipod got usb 2, firewire is not really doing very well:

Firewire advantages:

* can connect devices directly to each other (no host needed) - possibly with USB on the go

* More power available to devices - true, but most devices don't need all that power.

* faster transfer - this is mostly due to the fact that more of the protocol is done in the chipset, less cpu work, as cpu's get faster this problem will diminish, and most devices don't use all that bandwidth anyway

USB 1/2

* much cheaper to manufacture
* tons of devices - except video cameras, however I believe cameras will switch from dv to hd, and when and if that happens, usb will be used.
* simpler protocol
* much greater support - OpenBSD supports it (extremely important)

Also the completely lunatic idea to have a different port for fw800, is to me unbelievable!

Call me paranoid.

[Nathan Ramella]

But, sometimes it bothers me to think that 200 years ago that the only radiowaves we were subjected to were ones from space.

Does it really seem healthy to be constantly bombarded with gigabits of data?

Any tinfoil hat people out there that do tailoring? -n

Re:Health concerns

[ckaminski]

It's called evolution. If humans are ever going to colonize the universe, we HAVE to develop a tolerance to radiation. What better way than what we've been doing?

Those who can tolerate mutations caused by cellphone and UWB radiation will give rise to children that can tolerate even greater levels. We've removed one selection pressure (hunger and predators) and replaced it with others (recycled and processed foods, constant radiation bombardment).

I see this is a good thing. If it means my granchildren's kids can walk around on Mars in a t-shirt with a SCBA pack, I'm all for it.

Re:What shall we call it?

[coene]

Better yet, lets just be more descriptive and call it "Phoenix".. Yeah, that's never been used before!