Change waits in wireless wings

Ultrawideband may soon boost array of devices

August 05, 2002|By Jon Van, Tribune staff reporter.

Wireless communication's hottest new development is still a year away from putting a commercial product on the market, but it has already been adapted for a wired application to double cable TV capacity.

This development for ultrawideband radio--or UWB--as well as its reputed ability to transmit through walls and move tons of data in microseconds could make it the most versatile new technology to come along since the personal computer.

Developed decades ago by military researchers intent upon improving radar images, UWB was given a green light for commercial development in February by the Federal Communications Commission.

UWB's first application is likely to be equipment linking personal entertainment systems, computers and other household gadgets wirelessly so that, for example, a digital camera could transmit images to a personal computer without need of a wired connection.

Another application: A single box connected to a cable television system from the outside could supply signals to all the TVs or personal computers within a home without wires.

While it uses a radically different type of signal, UWB isn't really so different from other technologies already in use, said Martin Rofheart, chief executive of Xtreme Spectrum, a start-up based in Vienna, Va. UWB is "Bluetooth on steroids," he said.

Bluetooth refers to a class of low-powered radio devices that provide wireless communications for electronics equipment. An example would be a wireless connection between a personal computer and a printer.

The difference, Rofheart said, is that UWB uses far less power than Bluetooth devices and sends vastly more data. Rofheart is pushing for standards to cover UWB so that it will be embraced quickly by the industry as the best means of sending data wirelessly over short distances.

Products to provide UWB services are expected to be ready for Christmas 2003, but an even more intriguing application has been suggested by executives at Pulse-Link Inc., a San Diego start-up company.

By applying UWB wireless technology to cable TV operating systems, it is possible to double capacity, said Bruce Watkins, Pulse-Link's president. Thus a system that currently offers customers 100 channels could increase options to 200 channels.

Operators could also expand offerings of video-on-demand services, provide some high-definition programming or otherwise increase the array of available products, he said.

"You can think of a cable TV operation as a bucket that you put water into and however big your bucket, that's your capacity," said Watkins. "What we can do is to give the cable operator a second bucket that holds just as much water as the first one."

While UWB is fundamentally a wireless technology that uses radio signals to work its magic, it can also be applied to a cable TV system's fiber and coaxial cable with salutary results, Watkins said.

UWB uses radio in a radically different way from television, cell phones, public safety dispatchers or other traditional applications.

Existing radio transmissions split the radio waves into frequencies set apart by the power of their signals, or amplitude. UWB transmitters emit radio signals in tiny pulses across a broad range of the radio spectrum, but at very low power. Binary information is carried by varying the time between the pulses, which are sent at the rate of 10 million to 40 million per second.

To a conventional radio receiver, UWB's timed signals look like background noise or static signals emitted by personal computers and other electronic devices. But UWB receivers can get large amounts of data quickly by reusing the same radio spectrum that's already carrying conventional wave-based signals.

The technology was devised for use over the air, but John Santhoff, founder and chief technology officer at Pulse-Link, got the idea for using UWB over fiber and coaxial cable last year.

He found it works well, carrying new time-based signals over the same lines that are already carrying traditional analog or digital signals.

"All traditional communications are in the frequency domain," said Santhoff. "We're in the time domain. Most existing equipment cannot even detect our signal."

Double capacity

A cable TV operator can double the system's capacity without making major changes, Watkins said. One device that may cost about $30,000 would be installed at the system's front end, and then another device would be installed in the home of each subscriber who wanted to pay for new services. These would probably cost around $100 apiece, he said.

Pulse-Link has set up a lab demonstration of the technology for cable industry executives. Watkins said he hopes to partner with a cable TV operator to equip a few systems with UWB to serve as field tests. The firm hopes to license the technology to companies like Motorola that make cable TV set-top boxes, Watkins said.

Santhoff began working on a wired application for UWB last year when the FCC put off a decision to approve over-the-air applications.