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story category 890Mbps Ultra-Wideband
Think that'll handle your HD home networking needs, grandma?
(old news - 12:28PM Thursday Dec 13 2007)
tags: business · wireless · hardware · bandwidth · cable
Ultra-Wideband (UWB) is a radio modulation technique noted for its potential to offer blazing speeds at very short ranges (great for in-home HD distribution over wireless or coaxial). Unfortunately UWB has been bogged down in a standards war for many years. A company named Pulse~LINK has been working on UWB hardware for some time, and recently conducted tests showing their gear may be able to achieve wireless speeds between 500 and 890Mbps:
Click for full size
A comprehensive test of UWB products, conducted by octoScope, showed CWave's 1.35 Gbps over-the-air signaling rate delivering 890 Mbps application layer throughput. CWave performance was 15 to 20 times greater than all other wireless UWB products measured in the test, the best of which peaked at around 50 Mbps at close range.
A full report was published here (pdf) by EETimes, who offer an additional explanation here:
An innovative aspect of the CWave architecture is that any device using the Pulse-Link chipset is capable of supporting wireless, coaxial and power-line transmissions under a single 802.15.3b MAC, enabling HD video transport throughout the entire house on whatever media are available. The isochronous 802.15.3b MAC, with QoS built-in from the ground up, is designed to support whole-home networking of streaming video, multi-channel audio and high data rate networking.
Pulse~LINK has also tinkered with taking this idea outside of the home and onto cable networks. They had hoped to increase the bandwidth available to cable providers (to the tune of +1 gigabit downstream, 580 megabits upstream per node). We've not heard of any cable operators signing on to the idea, however.

Update: The president of Pulse~LINK stops by our comment section to explain why exactly UWB is a big deal:
Today, you can network your PC's. Why not your DVD players, game consoles, High Definition TVs, and the rest? Wouldn't you like to connect those things, but get rid of the rat's nest of wires at the same time.

It takes about 20Mbps to network a High Definition 1080i stream, about 35Mbps at 1080p. If you want trick play (pause, fast forward, rewind), multiply those data rates by four. If you have several rooms and different people watching different programs in different rooms, the data rate requirement goes up from there.

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Forums » 890Mbps Ultra-Wideband
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Post a:

OlivierDT

join:2006-11-12
Carignan

That's fast...

Another technology that we'll never see
But damn... that's fast!

SkyBlue

join:2007-03-31

Re: That's fast...

said by OlivierDT See Profile :

Another technology that we'll never see
But damn... that's fast!
Yes it is fast and yet it is yet another great intervention that you can buy some day but won't do you any good unless your exchanging files between 2 computers in your own house.

Because the ISP's wont be offering speeds like that for quite some time for a reasonable rate.

So should they be spending time making things for the future or concentrating on making ISP's raise the bar, giving higher speeds to customers so they can take advantage of there high speed products.

Like 802.11 G standard or N standard who can really take advantage of those kinds of speeds?

Only a home network, you cant download 54mbs or 100mbs on the internet without paying an arm and a leg for a DS3 or OC3.

Whats the motivation. Just like saying buy cat 6 cable its faster than cat5 , but yet cat5 is more than you need its capable of 100mbs.

Whats the motivation?

Great ideas and nice to see technology.

But would be nicer to see providers catch up to it.

otherwise i am happy with a 802.11 B wireless device because that's about as fast as I can connect to the internet and B standard goes farther than G and is more reliable.

From the Pres

@pulselink.net

Re: That's fast...

It's not about connecting two PCs or forwarding data from your ISP. It's about networking the high-definition centric multimedia appliances around your home.

For example, wouldn't it be nice to eliminate the HDMI cable. Or, come out of the HDMI port on your new Blu-Ray or HD-DVD player and being able to enjoy that device from every single HDTV in your home without connecting any new wires between anything.

Today, you can network your PC's. Why not your DVD players, game consoles, High Definition TVs, and the rest? Wouldn't you like to connect those things, but get rid of the rat's nest of wires at the same time.

It takes about 20Mbps to network a High Definition 1080i stream, about 35Mbps at 1080p. If you want trick play (pause, fast forward, rewind), multiply those data rates by four. If you have several rooms and different people watching different programs in different rooms, the data rate requirement goes up from there.

It also takes guaranteed Quality of Service, otherwise our video image breaks up and the video is not synchronized with the Audio. WiFi, Ethernet, etc., do not offer guaranteed quality of service - that's the primary reason you don't use them for networking high quality video.

So, it isn't about your ISP and browsing the internet or checking emails. It's about your entertainment content service provider if you use a personal video recorder in the set top box and want to network your recorded content around the home. And, its about networking all of your DVD's, etc., so that content - protected or personal - located anywhere in your house can be accessed and enjoyed from any suitable HDTV in your house without you having to run new wires or move your appliances

Sound like you might want that?

SkyBlue

join:2007-03-31

Re: That's fast...

said by From the Pres :

It's not about connecting two PCs or forwarding data from your ISP. It's about networking the high-definition centric multimedia appliances around your home.

For example, wouldn't it be nice to eliminate the HDMI cable. Or, come out of the HDMI port on your new Blu-Ray or HD-DVD player and being able to enjoy that device from every single HDTV in your home without connecting any new wires between anything.

Today, you can network your PC's. Why not your DVD players, game consoles, High Definition TVs, and the rest? Wouldn't you like to connect those things, but get rid of the rat's nest of wires at the same time.

It takes about 20Mbps to network a High Definition 1080i stream, about 35Mbps at 1080p. If you want trick play (pause, fast forward, rewind), multiply those data rates by four. If you have several rooms and different people watching different programs in different rooms, the data rate requirement goes up from there.

It also takes guaranteed Quality of Service, otherwise our video image breaks up and the video is not synchronized with the Audio. WiFi, Ethernet, etc., do not offer guaranteed quality of service - that's the primary reason you don't use them for networking high quality video.

So, it isn't about your ISP and browsing the internet or checking emails. It's about your entertainment content service provider if you use a personal video recorder in the set top box and want to network your recorded content around the home. And, its about networking all of your DVD's, etc., so that content - protected or personal - located anywhere in your house can be accessed and enjoyed from any suitable HDTV in your house without you having to run new wires or move your appliances

Sound like you might want that?
I am old school.

I like wires. Its reliable and clumsy.

djrobx

join:2000-05-31
Valencia, CA
·AT&T U-Verse
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·RoadRunner Cable
·DSL EXTREME

Re: That's fast...

Me too. I have yet to find anything wireless that's truly reliable. Wireless is really convenient but even the stuff I have that works best seems to suffer from some level of intermittent brain-fartiness.

Microsoft wireless keyboard and mouse? LOL. I have to have the receiver less than a foot away from the mouse. Even then I *still* get sporadic "Wireless signal quality is low" messages. The Bluetooth mouse on my mac pro seems to be a much better situation. In fact I think Bluetooth is the only wireless technology I've used that really works well in its specified signal range (although its not without its own share of issues).

Wifi networking. All the 802.11b gear I tried was a joke, always disconnecting and reconnecting. "g" gear seems to have improved the situation dramatiacally, but speeds are still about a third of what's advertised, and the connections suffer from latency spikes. When I've run into crap connections, bigger antennas rarely does any good. The only way for me to use my laptop comfortably was to move an access point into the same room.

In my theater room I had to buy a keyboard rated at 100 feet just to use it about 10 feet away. And even then the damn thing drops characters.

I tried a IOGear wireless "UWB" USB hub. The stupid thing didn't work just 6 feet away, line of sight. . I ended up returning it and purchasing a far more complex, far slower, but more functioning combination of a Belkin Network USB hub and a Buffalo router in client mode.

The thought of HDTV fed wirelessly gives me the hebejebes. With my luck, I can virtually guarantee it would intermittently stop and freeze. Not all the time, but just enough to remind me that wireless will never be as good as a hardwired connection.
jester121

join:2003-08-09
Lake Zurich, IL
·ViaTalk

Re: That's fast...

I think it's your aluminum foil hat.

Seriously, if you're having that much trouble with all these wireless devices in your house, it's your house. There's some flaky gear out there for sure, but there's also a lot that just plain works.

greendragon
Premium
join:2003-09-20
Stewartville, MN
Hell yeah I want that!

If you need in home testing, let me know!
Alphy

join:2001-12-31
Troy, MI
You've got my vote. I'd buy it, provided it was a thoroughly tested product and received decent reviews.

needmorembps

@silkroadtech.com
Guess you have no use for file servers, media hubs etc.
I max out my 100mbs internal network daily.
Once I update the desktops I plan on going to 1000Mbps ethernet.

Having those speeds locally and being wireless would be awesome
attsbcisgay

join:2003-03-18
Beverly Hills, CA
i no longer care about having anything faster
beside
tv, movies are useless imho...
we should use it for communication only
otishog

join:2007-11-09
Grand Prairie, TX


edit:
December 14th, @11:13AM

Verizon Fios is surpassing those requirements to transfer video from stb to stb for the Multiroom dvr option, as well as providing video on demand on a wired network. With the multiroom option you can watch from three other stb and have the dvr record two things at once and be able to watch something you have previously recorded at the same time. Thats 6 things at one time the dvr is doing without missing a beat. Coming this next year High Definition will be part of the Multiroom option and of the Video on demand. Verizon is the leader in this technology.
otishog

join:2007-11-09
Grand Prairie, TX

edit:
December 14th, @11:11AM

repeat, sorry.

MattE
Obama '08
Premium
join:2003-07-20
Jamestown, NC
·North State Commun..
·Corporate Colocation

Wireless Home Theater

This would be great for alleviating the rat's nest of wires around almost all electronic devices ... I wonder if the range would be great enough to replace WiFi as the streaming transport from a PC to a media center extender?
--
Pretty Fly for a White Guy™

SkyBlue

join:2007-03-31

Re: Wireless Home Theater

said by MattE See Profile :

This would be great for alleviating the rat's nest of wires around almost all electronic devices ... I wonder if the range would be great enough to replace WiFi as the streaming transport from a PC to a media center extender?
There is items out there that use wireless technology to your home thearter already. You just have to search for them.

My fear is your going to have so many wireless devices your going to run into each other at some point or you will have to take precausions to make sure all your devices don't use the same frequency or your neighbors.

otherwise your better off with a wired device for 2 reasons 1. no interference.
2. no chemo therapy effect (microwave radiation house effect)

Jason Levine
Premium
join:2001-07-13
Albany, NY

Re: Wireless Home Theater

There are wireless home theater components already, but the speeds at which they operate might not work well with HD content. When I was looking into one, I wasn't even positive that it would work well for standard definition/DVD quality programs.

DRM Killler

@rr.com

said by MattE See Profile :

... I wonder if the range would be great enough to replace WiFi as the streaming transport from a PC to a media center extender?
Sure. With the bandwidth to burn they would mesh great. Every device would become a micro node. Wired to the 3rd hop is still 225 Mbps. 55 Mbps at 6 hops is still enough for a few HD channels simultaneous, and some fast ast internet. I would think there to be a natural market for the elimination of signal wires, and UWB has the jizm to do the job.

Jason Levine
Premium
join:2001-07-13
Albany, NY

Re: Wireless Home Theater

Now if we could only get the movie industry to "allow" us to legally (and easily) move our DVD content from the discs to computers. (By "allow" I mean consumer grade software or devices that don't get sued out of existence by the MPAA.)

Imagine bringing home a new DVD and putting it into your Home Video Server. The HVS rips your DVD to a file and shares it (video, menus, extras and all) with any TV in that home that has a Wireless Home Video Receiver connected to it.

Right now I rarely buy DVDs because they get watched once and then wind up sitting on the shelf in unorganized stacks. It would be much better to be able to put the movie into some sort of home On-Demand system. Unfortunately, the movie industry is so busy worrying about the five people that would pirate the movies to see the income potential of the five hundred who would buy and watch more movies.
--
-Jason Levine
Support a children's charity. Buy a calendar. Shooting For A Cause
Jason's Toolbox | PCQandA.com

greendragon
Premium
join:2003-09-20
Stewartville, MN

Re: Wireless Home Theater

I would love to do the same thing. For now, I am sparingly buying movie downloads from cinemanow until something better comes out.

djrobx

join:2000-05-31
Valencia, CA
There are standards for legally streaming protected content. See:

»en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DTCP

At the time we looked into it it was only allowed over a wired network.
Nuts

join:2006-04-27
Forest, OH
I was at my local LG dealer last week, and he told me that his LG rep told him this is in the works. I think this is something that the home electronics companies know people would love these things

dvd536
as Mr. Pink as they come
Premium
join:2001-04-27
Phoenix, AZ

said by MattE See Profile :

This would be great for alleviating the rat's nest of wires around almost all electronic devices
But then where would all the dust bunnies go??
--
You can never be too rich, too thin or have too much Bandwidth
TheMG

join:2007-09-04
Edmonton, AB
·TekSavvy Solutions..
·800Hosting.com
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Cable companies

Pulse~LINK has also tinkered with taking this idea outside of the home and onto cable networks. They had hoped to increase the bandwidth available to cable providers (to the tune of +1 gigabit downstream, 580 megabits upstream per node). We've not heard of any cable operators signing on to the idea, however.
Not surprising. Cable companies like to starve their networks of bandwidth. Why increase the bandwidth at each node if the rest of the network can't handle it?

Anything that costs money and doesn't bring in immediate revenue they won't bother to do.

GeekGirl1
The Medium IS the Message
Premium
join:2007-01-28
Morrisville, PA
·Verizon FIOS
·Verizon Online DSL


edit:
January 4th, @04:54PM

Yet Another Proprietary Standard attempt

I just took a look at the full test report from the URL in their press release: »www.pulselink.net/press/pr-dec13-2007.htm. There's too much marketing hype. What I see is that it's limited to only 1 of the allocated UWB bands, 4.1 GHz and does BPSK modulation. FEC uses Low Density Parity Check / convolutional coding (Viterbi). You can't tell anything about the FEC unless both schemes are compared as Eb/N0 curves. Inconclusive on which is better.

From the plot on Figure 15, the CWave data rate drops like a rock after about 12' to 120 MBps. The other manufacturers show slow degradation. There are trade-offs of fast vs. slow rolloff. It's based on the application. Wonder why CWave's curve is different than the others (?).

Look at Figure 14. The Belkin F5U302 can do 35 MBps until about 20' from the transmitter. If 1080p needs 35 Mbps, this will do just fine.

One feature not mentioned in the report is the signal acquisition process. How long to lock / re-aquire? How robust is the receiver design to multipath? From Table 1: "The CWave reference design uses a 4.05 GHz carrier with the data rate values set to maintain the phase alignment between the carrier and the data signal..." There's a reason the other protocols have lower data rates and use more complex modulation techniques. This could be an Achilles heel. Just need more info (and real world testing).

I'll bet you can get even better performance if waveguide was used instead of coax. Now that's what I call "hard-wired" .
Forums » 890Mbps Ultra-Wideband


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