Bluetooth Adopts New Radio Technology

Now with even more wireless gadgets...

Bluetooth won't be the only communications protocol for WiMedia hardware. Members of the alliance are developing a Wireless USB standard and another based on the Internet Protocol, the core communications technology enabling e-mail, the Web and other Internet traffic. The first products are expected by September.

Both flavors of UWB use a wide swath of radio spectrum to transmit very weak and rapid signals. Freescale's chips send rapid pulses across a wide range of frequencies. Chips from Alereon Inc., part of the WiMedia Alliance, divide the spectrum into multiple channels and transmits data through each of them simultaneously.

The Federal Communications Commission has cleared the use of UWB in the United States, but the technology still needs approval from spectrum-guarding authorities in the rest of the world.

Foley said the Bluetooth group believed the best way to achieve that would be to focus on the little-used band above 6 gigahertz. That would ease regulatory concerns but also reduce the range of the technology, as the signals can't penetrate walls.