Apparently, March's FCC decision has promoted more convergence on UWB standards than thought: John Markoff files an interesting story that I had to read a few times because I thought it was at odds with what's been happening in the big split in developing a ultrawideband standard with Intel and its cohorts on one side and Motorola on the other. Rather, it's a little insight into a shift in bringing UWB to market. Motorola represents the "classic" approach to UWB as originally developed by the folks at what is now Freescale (a Motorola spinoff that includes the acquired XtremeSpectrum firm); Intel and its partners have an OFDM variant that the FCC upgraded from tolerated under a waiver to approved in March.
Still, this article backs up what I heard was happening in the IEEE 802.15.3a task group that had its mission of settling a personal area networking standard using UWB. An inability to reach supermajority led to Intel and others moving forward aggressively with Wireless USB and at the WiMedia Alliance. But Intel et al. didn't withdraw from the task group and it continues to meet; the next meeting is May 15 to 20 in Australia. The agenda shows that at 11.21 a.m. on May 16 (yes, these are engineers) there will be a panel discussion on compromise that could extend to a total of over three hours that day.
This article doesn't have any quotes from any of the major players, only from analysts and those around the periphery which lends credence to the notion that something big is happening and everyone is keeping their mouths shut. When I've written about UWB and 802.15.3a, I could barely slow down the trash talking from members of the two major camps.
Markoff notes that Motorola's UWB Forum has 100 members, but they're mostly academic institutions and smaller firms with a few exceptions. Intel is part of the WiMedia Alliance, among other UWB groups, which has a blue-chip list of top-line "promoter" members including Microsoft, Kodak, Philips, Sony, HP, and others. It's still mostly Motorola (and its FreeScale and MeshNetworks connected partners) versus the world.