Peter Judge writes a UWB Soap three-parter: It's daytime theater on the air as Judge presents the views of Freescale, the Bluetooth SIG, and the WiMedia Alliance on the future of UWB and Bluetooth. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll consult stock market reports.
Part one covers the views of Martin Rofheart, a pioneer of UWB and head of Freescale's wireless efforts, but whose particular flavor appears marginalized and sidelined to my eyes. Freescale's UWB technology was dropped by Bluetooth and Freescale and former parent Motorola left the trade group they helped form. While promising shipping silicon for years, Freescale now seems poised to deliver it at last this July--but only running at 110 Mbps, not the promised 480 Mbps speed sought for the last couple of years. Rofheart makes a lot of claims for how his competition's version of UWB is further behind and less capable. Freescale plans to deliver Cable Free USB, which will work seamlessly through dongles and hubs with existing USB 2.0 connections and devices.
Part two looks into whether Bluetooth has a future given recent developments. Judge notes that Freescale's Rofheart believes Bluetooth over UWB will be late to market and have a restricted worldwide appeal due to choices about spectrum. Will no-wire USB simply take the day? Hard to say, although there's a lot of good technical detail here to absorb. Fundamentally, Bluetooth is about applications running over a radio, while USB is about connectivity. For companies already invested in Bluetooth, adding UWB as a radio option should involve less effort than retooling around USB. Although USB is commonly used for phone synchronization, too. It should prove entertaining.
Part three has the WiMedia Alliance chiming in with their upcoming delivery dates and refuting much of what Rofheart says. (There's no rebuttal from Freescale yet, but part three just posted.) The WiMedia Alliance says that Certified Wireless USB will provide better throughput than Freescale's Cable Free USB by a long shot, and that a single radio for future application and connectivity standards for short-range networks is the right way to go.
The soap opera won't reach its conclusion until products ship. Stay tuned.