Beyond Wi-Fi

Sitting on your living room couch, you press the link on your mobile device for a new high-definition movie. Almost instantly, the movie is transmitted and begins to play. That vision of the future moved a bit closer Sunday, when IBM and MediaTek announced a joint initiative to develop ultrafast wireless chipsets for use in homes and offices.

The new technology would enable data rates that are at least 100 times faster than current Wi-Fi standards, according to a statement by the companies.

The project promises to make the word "wireless" as outdated for nearby electronic devices as, say, "horseless" is for cars. With the new chipset, HD TVs will be able to connect to their set-top boxes without wires, and wires for all other devices in a home or office could similarly become a distant memory.

mmWave Technology

The initiative focuses on millimeter wave radio technology, or mmWave, which uses very high frequencies to send huge amounts of data quickly. The companies said that a 10-GB file, which would take about 10 minutes with present-day Wi-Fi, could be uploaded in five seconds using their mmWave technology.

To get there, the two companies are sharing their strengths. IBM has new mmWave radio chips, antenna, and packaging technology, and MediaTek, a Taiwan-based company, has expertise in baseband and video processing chips.

IBM Research has been investigating mmWave technology over the last four years, and, in 2006, showed a prototype chipset as small as a dime that could transmit uncompressed HD video.

Although the IBM-MediaTek announcement did not mention exact frequencies, Current Analysis analyst Peter Jarich noted that, in the past, IBM has talked about 60 GHz and higher. He noted that these high frequencies have traditionally been used for point-to-point links, such as two buildings half a mile apart.

Bluetooth on Steroids

"The lower frequencies have been more valuable," said Jarich, "because lower frequencies can travel further without amplification." The new mmWave technology has to be localized, he said, because the very high frequencies "can only travel so far."

It is for this reason that mmWave is being positioned as a sort of Bluetooth on steroids, a very fast way to connect devices over short distances. Jarich said that, unlike some technology research, this is not a solution looking for a problem. Who hasn't looked at the wires connecting their TiVo box, DVD player, TV, and other devices, he asked, and wondered if there was a better way?

Jarich pointed out that, although IBM and MediaTek are talking about mmWave as a way to connect devices locally, they are referencing its speed compared to Wi-Fi. They are not positioning it as a general transmission technology to replace, say, 3G.

It could eventually be marketed as a higher-speed replacement to Wi-Fi, he said, but at the moment "it's unclear if it can match the 100 to 200 foot range of Wi-Fi." And he said there would be business hurdles in overcoming the momentum of Wi-Fi because it has already grown into an entire ecosystem.

Source: http://www.toptechnews.com/news/IBM--MediaTek-Look-Beyond-Wi-Fi/story.xhtml?story_id=1310047RYMYM