Be ready for the noise floor to ratchet up another notch. Oh me. /73, Gary/ -- New technology to transmit video without wires through home By Joelle Tessler Mercury News Someday soon, you will be able to take the video stream that your set-top cable box brings into your living room and beam it to the television set in the back bedroom without hooking up any cables. You will be able to transfer the video footage from your last vacation from the camcorder to the TV without fumbling with wires. You will be able to send a multimedia presentation from a laptop to an overhead projector without plugging in any cords. These are some of the promises of ultra-wideband, a powerful technology that can transmit streaming video and other bandwidth-hogging content around homes and offices. Although ultra-wideband -- or UWB -- has been around for about 12 years, the wireless networking industry only last month received the crucial go-ahead from the Federal Communications Commission to develop the technology for mainstream commercial applications. Now ultra-wideband is poised to potentially shake up the world of wireless networking -- going head to head with more established wireless technologies like 802.11 and Bluetooth -- as UWB-enabled TV sets, VCRs and other devices hit the market in time for Christmas 2003. ``Ultra-wideband will allow you to make your surround-sound system and your video system completely wireless,'' said Michael Gallagher, deputy director of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, a bureau of the Commerce Department that manages the federal wireless spectrum along with the FCC. ``This lets you get rid of the rat's nest of wires.'' First developed by the military, ultra-wideband works by sending very short, narrow pulses of electromagnetic energy across a broad swath of the radio spectrum. The military already uses the technology in ground-penetrating radar systems to detect land mines and other objects buried underground, and police officers use it in imaging systems to monitor movement behind doors and walls. But while ultra-wideband technology is quite compelling, it is also controversial. That's because UWB signals can cross parts of the radio spectrum already licensed for other uses, including the PCS spectrum used by cellular providers like Sprint and the GPS spectrum used by the military for global positioning. Although companies developing UWB networking technology maintain that ultra-wideband emissions are too low-powered to interfere with other radio signals, it has taken the Federal Communications Commission three years to approve the use of the technology for commercial wireless networking applications. When the FCC -- with an endorsement from the National Telcommunications and Information Administration -- finally gave the green light last month, the commission was careful to restrict the parts of the spectrum used by UWB and to limit UWB emission levels to minimize any risk of interference. Crosses spectrum According to Rudy Baca, an analyst for the Precursor Group, a telecom research firm, the approval of UWB for use in wireless networking -- even though UWB signals cross parts of the spectrum licensed by others -- allows the FCC to make better use of the existing radio spectrum at a time when spectrum is in short supply. The real question facing ultra-wideband now is whether it can break into a market already dominated by two existing wireless networking standards: Bluetooth, which is used for short-range personal area networks, or PANs, and 802.11, which is used in wider local area networks, or LANs. Although some analysts don't see much of a difference between UWB and 802.11 in particular, those developing the UWB market said the technology can do things that the existing wireless networking systems cannot. Most important, they say, UWB can handle more bandwidth-intensive applications -- like streaming video -- than either 802.11 or Bluetooth because it can send data at much faster rates. UWB technology has a data rate of roughly 100 megabits per second, with speeds up to 500 megabits per second. That compares with maximum speeds of 11 megabits per second for 802.11b, often referred to as Wi-Fi, which is the technology currently used in most wireless LANs; and 54 megabits per second for 802.11a, which is being rolled out as the next version of Wi-Fi, called Wi-Fi 5. Bluetooth has a data rate of about 1 megabit per second. As a result, UWB is particularly well-suited for wireless home entertainment networks, explained Jeff Ross, vice president of corporate development for Time Domain, an Alabama company that designs UWB chip sets for military, law enforcement and now commercial uses. Cheaper to produce Ultra-wideband is also less expensive than 802.11, which is critical in the price-sensitive world of consumer electronics, said Chris Fisher, vice president of marketing at XtremeSpectrum, a Virginia company developing UWB chip sets that would go into consumer electronics like VCRs and TVs. According to Fisher, the bill of materials -- the cost to the consumer electronics manufacturer to place UWB technology inside a device -- is $20 for ultra-wideband, compared with $40 for 802.11b and $65 for 802.11a. In addition, UWB technology consumes much less power than 802.11, making it ideal for use in battery-powered devices like cameras and cell phones. Wi-Fi, in contrast, ``is limited to PCs and things that you can plug into a wall,'' said Geoffrey Anderson, vice president of Sony's advanced wireless technology group. Perhaps the biggest drawback of UWB is its range of operation, although the technology can transmit signals farther when sending at lower data rates. Ultra-wideband can transmit signals within a range of about 10 meters, or 35 feet. That's roughly comparable to the range of Bluetooth but smaller than the range of both 802.11a at 15 meters and 802.11b at 50 meters. Still, the range of an ultra-wideband network can be extended by placing ``repeaters'' -- other UWB-enabled devices -- around a home or office. Someday, said Cahners In-Stat analyst Mike Wolf, ultra-wideband systems may even emerge as a competitor to the 3G wireless data networks that cellular providers like Sprint PCS and Verizon Wireless are now building. Now that the FCC has given its blessing to the use of UWB technology for wireless networking, Gartner Dataquest Group analyst Todd Hanson believes the big challenge for companies like Time Domain and XtremeSpectrum will be to bring consumer electronics manufacturers on board. ``They will have to evangelize the technology,'' Hanson said. Time Domain is already working with more than two dozen companies to develop applications for its UWB chip sets. And Xtreme Spectrum plans to be providing sample chips to potential customers by the middle of this year. Delivering `more value' Texas Instruments is also considering incorporating UWB into its chips. And even Intel is studying the technology. ``Intel wants to help create a UWB industry because it will allow devices we care a lot about, like PCs, to deliver more value,'' said Ben Manny, co-director of the wireless technology development organization in Intel Labs. For now, consumer electronics manufacturers like Sony maintain that it is too early to say exactly how they will use UWB technology in their products. But they seem intrigued. ``Maybe this is a technology chasing a market today,'' Hanson said. ``But there is a market for this.''