Bluetooth goes UWB

After years of discussions, the Bluetooth SIG now announced its selection of the WiMedia Alliance Multiband OFDM (MB-OFDM) version of ultra-wideband (UWB) for integration with current Bluetooth wireless technology. The new version, utilizing unlicensed radio spectrum above 6 GHz, is expected to support datarates up to 100 Mbps which is over 100 times faster than today’s Bluetooth datarate and targets the support of synchronizing and transferring large amounts of data, high quality video and audio between television, video recorders, PCs and portable devices.

The Bluetooth SIG estimates that the technical specification process will last approximately one year, with the first Bluetooth/UWB chip sets available for prototyping in Q2 2007.