IEEE ultrawideband proposals pushed back: The IEEE 802.15.3a committee, working on a 110 Mbps to 480 Mbps flavor of short-range personal area networks that is almost guaranteed to use ultrawideband (UWB) technology was unable to achieve the supermajority (75 percent) vote at their most recent meeting, pushing the next steps back to their meeting in November.
This is more than academic: on one side Motorola and XtremeSpectrum (among others) stand with a UWB approach similar to the one originally envisioned. On the other side, Intel, Texas Instruments, and others in the Multiband OFDM Alliance have an alternative that might offer some benefits and flexibility, especially for deployment on lower-powered devices.
The FCC's engineering office had the opportunity to offer a definitive statement on a measurement issue that might have decided the proposal one way or another. But, with the wisdom of Solomon, the director opted to avoid a decision until the IEEE had made up its mind, advising them to keep in mind the guidelines already promulgated. This is probably the best course, though frustrating to those who wanted a governmental hand in settling the matter.
The technical merits, political issues, and alliances have made it difficult to understand whether one proposal is clearly better than the other. The final version of 802.15.3a will likely be the better for these steps, as it will have had to adapt to the exigencies of the market and the technology.