Not surprisingly, the IEEE 802.15.3a Ultrawideband task group has agreed to disagree by disbanding. The group was working to define a standard for short-range wireless communications that promises data speeds of almost 1 Gbps but have been deadlocked for three years, unable to reach a consensus on a single standard. Two competing proposals--direct sequence (DS) UWB from Freescale and multiband OFDM from the WiMedia Alliance--have sat in a black hole of sorts during a bitter debate.
As with any standards battle, the squabble was mostly driven by intellectual property, and now the race is on to see who will lead the market. The debate ultimately could become a Betamax vs. VHS situation, where economies of scale win. DS-CDMA has already been used by the U.S. military and can get out the door quicker, while the WiMedia standard has more backers and demonstrated multiple silicon sources.
Read more about the UWB standards failure:
- read this article [1] from EETimes
Links:
[1] http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=OWDYBNSPDAJL2QSNDBESKHA?articleID=177101669