Couldn't be much more timely than this.
This article talks about maturity of 60 GHz, but to me the most
important aspect of this is simply that a 60 GHz in-room link's
advantage over the existing (and still brand new) UWB options is bit
rate. The fact that UWB includes lower frequencies is what limits its
bandwidth, compared with a technique that can count on a 60 GHz carrier.
I still fail to see anything approaching "disruptive" in any of this. To
me, this is a slight tweak on wireless PANs.
After this 60 GHz technique has lived out its very short lifespan of
usefulness for the trade press, the next hype will be a UWB version of
this, where the frequencies spanned will begin at around 60 GHz and go
up from there. And so on.
Bert
--------------------------------------
60-GHz radio not ready, says WiMedia chief
Rick Merritt
(11/01/2006 12:58 AM EST)
URL: http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=193500877
SAN JOSE -- Consumer electronics giants who announced Tuesday (Oct. 31)
plans to roll out a specification for 60 GHz wireless links for high
definition video in the home are getting ahead of themselves, said the
president of the WiMedia Alliance.
"The regulations for 60 GHz radios are not all in place, and the
standards aren't ready yet," said Stephen Wood who heads the group that
primarily promotes ultrawideband technologies such as wireless USB.
Yesterday, LG Electronics Inc., Matsushita Electric Industrial Co.,
Ltd., NEC Corp., Samsung Electronics, Co., Ltd, Sony Corp. and Toshiba
Corp. along with wireless startup SiBeam, Inc. announced they have
formed WirelessHD. The group aims deliver early next year a
specification for 4-5 Gbit/second home networking. Chips could sample as
soon as late 2007, the group said.
Wood said the WiMedia Alliance is studying 60 GHz technology and
concluded it could take another two years to be ready for the market.
The need for multiple sources of chips and interoperability testing will
stretch out the technology's time-to-market, he said.
"UWB is the technology for today," Wood said. "We haven't talked about
60 GHz radios because they are not mature. We could get consumers all
revved up about 60GHz, but we would be doing them a disservice," he
added.
The IEEE 802.15.3c task force is expected to accept proposals for a non
line-of-sight version of the technology early next year. "At this point
no one has had a chance to vet all the proposals," said Wood.
He said some of the big consumer companies in the WirelessHD group will
roll out camcorders and MP3 players using wireless USB, but they are not
necessarily committed to the 60 GHz products. "Most big multinationals
place a host of bets and use the resulting technologies that best fit,"
Wood said.
John Marshall, chairman of WirelessHD said 60 GHz radios will open the
door to lower cost and higher quality high-definition video products.
That's because the 4-5 Gbit/second radios will let OEMs send
uncompressed video between systems, letting them skip extra compression
and decompression steps that require costly chips, degrade video quality
and increase latency.
The WirelessHD group is developing a complete spec for 60 GHz products
that spans physical to application layer details. Initial products based
on the spec could draw roughly 5W and cost a slight premium over today's
wired HDMI links. They are expected to come in a one-inch-square module
that is sized to accommodate a directional antenna array.
"From a technical and regulatory point of view, it will be difficult for
UWB to get to 4-5 Gbits/s, so I don't see that technology as directly
competitive," said Mitchell.
The WirelessHD group is still debating whether or not it will charge
royalties for its technology. "It's such a big issue it requires
significant discussion and consideration. There are reasons for both
models," he said.
All material on this site Copyright 2006 CMP Media LLC. All rights
reserved.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
You can UNSUBSCRIBE from the OpenDTV list in two ways:
- Using the UNSUBSCRIBE command in your user configuration settings at
FreeLists.org
- By sending a message to: opendtv-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word
unsubscribe in the subject line.
