| reply to Guspaz
Re: Doesn't HAVE to be short range. said by Guspaz:Ultra Wideband also offers the potential for blazing speeds at enormous distances. I think the thing people were touting was gigabit speeds at ranges measured in kilometers while using a fraction the power of a cellphone. Touting it and actually getting it to work are two different things. However, I don't recall anyone touting kilometer ranges; it appeared to be mainly PANs and very short range operations that were targeted. Could you provide a link to someone touting multi-kilometer UWB links?
FCC regulation killed off that dream, which is the reason why it's been limited to very short ranges. Not because the technology can't, but because the FCC is paranoid about interference, and so they effectively neutered the most promising communication technology in the past twenty years.
How did the FCC neuter it? I don't recall the FCC passing any new regulations particular to UWB, though admittedly I haven't been following it closely. UWB can be operated under Part 15 now, and according to your paragraph above it can go for kilometers using a "fraction of the power of a cellphone", so it would follow that operation under the current Part 15 regulations would be quite feasible. |
