ARI HAAPANIEMI
HELSINKI UNIVERSITYOF TECHNOLOGY AJHAAPAN@CC.HUT.FI
OLLI-PEKKA ISOLA
HELSINKI UNIVERSITYOF TECHNOLOGY OLLI-PEKKA.ISOLA@HUT.FI
frequency bands. There have been fears that Bluetooth and Global Positioning System (GPS) are in threat. As a result, emission power used by the UWB applications has been restricted to few mW by the FCC, allowing UWB to achieve efficient indoor operating range of 10-20 meters.
Given operating ranges make UWB suitable for indoor use, but for outdoor use, emission powers may be inad-equate.
Nevertheless, one of the major design goals of the UWB has been to make emitted power amount per frequency band small enough that UWB can co-exist with other wire-less transmission systems in the same frequency. Low transmission power would enable UWB systems to co-exist with other systems, like cellular phones, GPS equip-ment and wireless network systems. Co-existence would further allow UWB to utilize possible unused frequency channels existing between channels used by the present, widely adopted standards. Low power consumption could also translate into a significant battery life extension mak-ing UWB a very temptmak-ing solution to be used in handheld devices. For example, UWB transmitter uses only frac-tion of the power used by the Bluetooth transmitter: In order to deliver 1 Mbps with efficient operating range of 10 meters Bluetooth transmitter requires average of 1 mW of radio frequency (RF) power, whereas UWB transmit-ter could provide same throughput and range charactransmit-teris- characteris-tics using only 10 uW RF power (J. Foerster, E. Green, S.
Somayazulu, D. Leeper, Ultra-Wideband Technology for Short- or Medium-Range Wireless Communications, pp 6).
WIRELESS ALTERNATIVES
Existing IEEE 802.11 standards, like 802.11b and 802.11g, have dominating position on WLAN market. In order UWB to challenge their dominance, it has to pro-vide some considerable additional advantages when com-pared to 802.11 family of the standards. Security features could be such. Because UWB is inherently more secure than any of the 802.11 technologies, it could offer solu-tion for security problems, caused by the “openness” of the wireless networks. Higher data rates provided by UWB cannot be underestimated as competitive advantage in WLAN market.
UWB may easier win competition within Wireless Pri-vate Area Networks (WPANs). Bluetooth has been the dominating standard within this networking area, provid-ing efficient data rates of approximately 1 Mbps. The UWB achieves easily far greater data rates with less power consumption. Especially smaller power consumption can be regarded as major advantages when handheld WPAN devices are considered.
SCENARIOS
As a background for following scenarios we have to dis-cuss about complementing and competing technologies.
UWB technology will not compete with every other
wire-less or mobile technology. Which ones are those that complement it, then?
GSM, GPRS, EDGE and UTMS have far greater cover-age and they offer roaming that can still be considered quite unique feature. They are targeted to true converging applications while UWB seems to have pure data back-ground. At the same time they do not offer as high through-put than UWB.
As we have learned, mobile or wireless systems are actu-ally a part of wired infrastructure and replace cables only in the last hop. Wired solutions are always required as backbones except in the last hop.
Our opinion is that competitors will be Bluetooth, today’s Wireless LANs and HiperLAN2. Actually, HiperLAN2 may not have any chances to challenge today’s Wireless LANs and UWB. IEEE 802.11 based wireless LANs have extremely strong market position and they offer transi-tion path similar to Ethernet.
Three possible scenarios can be outlined. We study them via two significant segments, namely WPAN (Wireless Personal Area Network) and WLAN (Wireless Local Area Network). WPAN can be thought as personal appliance network that surrounds single human. WLAN usually consist of multiple computers and may have connection to the Internet.
UWB remains as marginal technology in our first and most modest scenario. Most market research companies are betting superior future for UWB compared to this one.
We are quite sure that today’s WLANs have so strong position that it is extremely difficult to replace them with other technology. Why to implement yet another technol-ogy if existing one offers the most wanted features? The series of IEEE 802.11 specifications allow users to up-grade and expand networks when needed. Bluetooth domi-nates WPAN segment. UWB gains popularity in applica-tion areas where it's features offer unique advantage. These are automobile collision detection systems and wall-through radars used by rescue teams.
The emerging market of HDTV replacements in US plays an important role in the second scenario. We estimate that this one is most probable scenario. UWB performs well as cable replacement technology (replacing Firewire-con-nections between computers and video recorders and com-puters and USB devices). High Definition TV replace-ments are big opportunity to the manufacturers and Cable TV providers to bundle wireless circuits to the TV sets.
This may not be the development that consumers initially demand but they may find out that setting up full home theatre system is a whole lot easier when there is no ca-bling work to do. UWB may also replace Bluetooth in WPAN segment but we think that IEEE 802.11 series of specifications has so strong market establishment that USB and IEEE 802.11 based systems will co-exist and may blend with each other instead of direct replacement.
The last scenario is really bold. We have put a condition here. In order to penetrate the whole short-range data com-munications segment, the seamless integration with
up-per layer protocols is needed including successes in ear-lier scenarios. Actually, this scenario means that from user point of view, growth path of existing WLANs continues but the underlying transmission system is replaced with UWB.
MARKET ESTIMATES
The Allied Business Intelligence research company has estimated that 45 million UWB chips will be sold at 2007.
Worth of these shipments would be 1.4 billion euros.
First deliveries to buyers is estimated to happen in the end of 2003, after which UWB will increasingly grow its market share of the home wireless market according to In-Stat/MDR, the high-tech market research firm. Despite that UWB will be strong rival to IEEE 802.11 based WLANs; existing WLAN standards will dominate mar-kets throughout 2006.
In-Stat/MDR further estimates that the first UWB prod-ucts will be designed for the WPAN environment, and will have speeds around 100 Mbps, and a range of 10 m.
The first UWB products will probably come from the consumer electronic and set-top box companies. Other UWB companies that are planning to enter the home net-working market include Time Domain and General Atom-ics.
All these estimations comes with condition that the FCC will allow full potential of UWB. Uncertainty inherited from FCC’s reservation of rights for future regulations may cause vendors to abandon this promising new tech-nology.
CONCLUSIONS
UWB falls between IEEE 802.11 tecnologies and Bluetooth. IEEE 802.11 based WLANs offer greater cov-erage with narrower bandwidth for computer equipment while Bluetooth offers seamless communications for per-sonal communication devices within smaller area but with slower speeds. Both of these two are existing and mature frameworks for short range communications.
It seems that UWB is not direct replacement of these two technologies and there might be a market segment that technology companies may exploit (Kivisaari Eino, Tech-nology Strategy Analysis for an Emerging Communica-tions Technology, pp 54.). In spite of that we believe that IEEE 802.11 technologies and Bluetooth dominate and UWB will note replace it in shorter periods (before the end of 2004). Customers do not want one more commu-nication method just for technology reasons. Customers select one or two technologies and deploy it everywhere it is possible whether it is optimal or not (Huhtanen 2002).
Existing technologies have advantage on this kind of set-up. This happens for simplicity’s sake and economical reasons. Programmable radio transmitters and receivers may alter market situation and make communication hi-erarchy more viable solution (Oraskari 2002). This may
allow room for more technologies in the long run.
Much of the success of UWB depends on how transmis-sion capabilities are used in upper protocol layers. There is a strong tendency to use IEEE 802.3 framing and IP everywhere. If IEEE 802.3 framing is not implemented on UWB, UWB loses much of it’s appeal. But if IEEE 802.3 framing is implemented on UWB, UWB might be the future engine behind solutions we know as IEEE 802.11 based WLANs these days.
It is also possible that we see two totally different market segments building up. These segments most likely will be one for WPANs, multimedia device networks and cable replacement and one for WLANs. This set-up leads UWB compete with Bluetooth and many of the wired alterna-tives, USB and Firewire as most notable contenders.
Regulatory bodies like FCC, ETSI and ITU among oth-ers, play an important role in wide acceptance of UWB because UWB is fundamentally different from traditional frequency oriented radio communications paradigm. Use of UWB consumes huge amount of frequencies but in very limited area and time span.
In February 13, 2003, the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) allowed use of UWB devices under FCC rules, part 15, and reaffirmed the regulations it passed on February 12, 2002 with some minor changes that eased the design of UWB devices. Still, FCC reserved the right for further regulations after 12-18 months period that will provide feedback and real life experiences. (FCC 2003) Removal of regulatory uncertainty has major impact on UWB market growth. While FCC has no rule setting power on other countries, it has shown the development path that other regulators will follow. In fact, radio fre-quency licensing issues regarding UWB have fuelled the reformation of FCC rulemaking process. (FCC/Powell 2003).
REFERENCES
Articles
Timo Helenius, Buffalo Airstation WBR-G54, Tietokone, January 2003, pp. 13.
Jarmo Huhtanen, Brice Clark: Kännykkäverkoissa väärää tekniikkaa, Tietokone, November 2002, pp. 16.
Samuli Kotilainen, Langattomat verkot rajussa myötäisessä, Tietokone, October 2002, pp. 10.
Petri Mähönen, Tulevaisuuden mobiilit dataverkot, Tietokone, August 2000, pp. 62-70.
Jyrki Oraskari, 4G - Matkapuhelimien neljäs sukupolvi, Tietokone, June 2002, pp. 103.
Studies
Jin Ding, Li Zhao, Sirisha R. Medidi and Krishna M.
Sivalingam, “MAC Protocols for Ultra-Wide-Band (UWB) Wireless Networks: Impact of Channel Acquisi-tion Time”, ITCOM 2002 (IT401), July 2002, http://
www.eecs.wsu.edu/~jding1/paper/ITCOM401-02/
itcom401-02.pdf.
J. Foerster, E. Green, S. Somayazulu, D. Leeper, Ultra-Wideband Technology for Short- or Medium-Range Wirelss Communications, Intel Technology Journal, 2Q 2001, http://intel.com/technology/itj/2001/articles/
art_4.htm.
Kivisaari Eino, 2002, Technology Strategy Analysis for an Emerging Communications Technology - Case: Ultra Wideband Communications, Master’s thesis, December 16 2002, Helsinki University of Technology.
White Papers / Specifications
Federal Communications Commission, First Report and Order Revision of Part 15 of the Commission’s Rules Regarding Ultra-Wideband Transmission Systems, April 2002, http://www.fcc.gov/oet/dockets/et98-153
Federal Communications Commission, News Release FCC Affirms Rules to Authorize the Deployment of Ul-tra-Wideband Technology, February 2003, http://
hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-231197A3.pdf
Federal Communications Commission, Statement of Chairman Michael K. Powell Re: Revision of Part 15 of the Commission’s Rules Regarding Ultra-Wideband Transmission Systems, February 2003, http://
hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-231197A1.pdf.
1 ABSTRACT
10 Modern multimedia applications demand higher data rates, and the trend towards wireless is evident, not only in telephony but also in home and office networking and customer electronics. This has been recently proven by the accelerating sales of IEEE 802.11 family WLAN hard-ware.
Current WLANs are, however, capable of delivering only 10-50 Mb/s connection speeds, which is certainly insuffi-cient if we look at the bandwidth requirements of future applications like wireless high-quality videoconferencing, multiple simultaneous wireless IEEE 1394 (Firewire) connections or wireless LAN bridges across network seg-ments. For these and many other purposes a lot more ca-pacity—wirelessly—is needed. It seems that today casual Internet users and office workers are rather happy with the service level provided by IEEE 802.11 WLANs, but the rising of users’ bandwidth demands does not show any signs of decline.
What makes 60 GHz millimeter wave (MMW) systems a very attractive solution for the purposes described ear-lier, is the fact that there is a several GHz wide frequency range available around 60 GHz, almost worldwide. This massive spectral space (on the magnitude of 5 GHz) en-ables densely situated, non-interfering wireless networks to be used in the most bandwidth-hungry applications of the future, in all kinds of short-range (<1 km) wireless communication.
In addition to the large unlicensed spectral space avail-able, the propagation characteristics of 60 GHz radio sig-nals are favorable for implementing very high speed wire-less networks close to each other in metropolitan envi-ronments. Probably the most promising application areas of 60 GHz systems are indoor WLAN solutions and fixed wireless connections, perhaps complemented with FSO (Free Space Optical) lasers to improve outdoor reliabil-ity, where heavy rain can significantly attenuate 60 GHz signals.
2 INTRODUCTION
The 60 GHz millimeter wave (MMW) radio technology is a promising candidate for fulfilling the future needs for very high bandwidth wireless connections. It enables up to gigabit-scale connection speeds to be used in indoor
WLAN networks or fixed wireless connections in metro-politan areas.
In the frequency range of 60 GHz systems (typically 58-64 GHz) there is no need for licensing in most countries, which makes the deployment of 60 GHz systems a lot smoother operation compared to building e.g. 3G cellu-lar networks. However, the 60 GHz radio technology is not a directly competing technology for 3G systems, but instead a building block for future wireless networks with very much more bandwidth and also much less mobility than current cellular systems.
Generally speaking, the more speed we need the more bandwidth we need. Transmission of several hundred megabits (or even a gigabit) per second requires very large bandwidth, which is available in the millimeter wave area.
Fortunately, there is a remarkably large frequency range allocated for unlicensed wireless telecommunications around 60 GHz. In Europe the frequency ranges 62-63 GHz and 65-66 GHz are reserved for wideband mobile networks (MBS, Mobile Broadband System), whereas 59-62 GHz range is reserved for unlicensed wideband wire-less local area networks. In the United States the frequency range 59-66 GHz is a generally unlicensed range. In Ja-pan 59-66 GHz is reserved for wireless communications [3] [4]. In comparison to for example 17 GHz radio sys-tems the 60 GHz has a huge advantage in terms of the spectral space available.
Country / Region Frequency Purpose Range [GHz]
Europe 62–63, 65–66 MBS
59–62 WLAN
USA 59–64 General purpose
Japan 59–66 Wireless
Communication Table 1: Frequencies Available for 60 GHz Wireless Communications Worldwide
The data amounts transmitted in wired and wireless net-works have been increasing due to the ever growing popu-lation of Internet users and the more and more feature-rich services used. This combined with the trends towards