Several major electronics manufacturers back WirelessHD, which would be used for streaming high-definition video and other multimedia content: The specification would use the 60 GHz band, and they expect chips by 2008 that would support 25 gigabits per second (Gbps) of data transfer. Moving that much data is an expensive proposition today, with only high-end Ethernet switches and adapters handling that for wired communications. The roster of founding members includes LG, Sony, Toshiba, Panasonic parent Matsushita, NEC, and Samsung. These firms are also involved with ultrawideband (UWB) in the WiMedia Alliance, which the WirelessHD head said would be a complementary, not competing technology. Because apparently 480 Mbps over a few meters isn't enough to carry the kind of HD programming around a home (and at the distances) envisioned for WirelessHD.
We'll see. My take is that if UWB gains the expected traction in 2007 that is now anticipated, and it starts appearing widely in mid-to-high-end consumer electronics--especially HDTV sets--then WirelessHD has to deliver something pretty remarkable, or be positioned as an evolutionary technology. Meanwhile, the UWB standard from WiMedia will increase in speed during the same period, with some firms already showing 1 Gbps UWB using non-standard implementations.
This WirelessHD may actually just be a rebanded variant of the same UWB flavor championed by the WiMedia Alliance. You are not going to get 25 Gbps without a channel hundreds of MHz wide. Is there a power efficient way to do such wide channels other than UWB? The real issue is whether there is enough demand for such high bit rates for this thing to be a reasonable price any time soon. It puts me in the mind of 802.11a.