Let’s work together

The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) is to work with the developers of the wireless technology commonly known as Ultra-WideBand (UWB) to combine the strengths of both technologies.

While details are still being worked out, the goal of the two is to develop an architecture that allows devices to take advantage of UWB data rates for scenarios that require high speed. Bluetooth will maintain backward compatibly with existing devices on the market and will be used in future products not requiring the higher data rate.

“It has been apparent that members of the Bluetooth SIG would like to enable products with higher data rates. I feel that it is the responsibility of the industry to recognize synergies and limit fragmentation as much as possible,” said Michael Foley, PhD, executive director of the Bluetooth SIG.

“Joint development between Bluetooth technology and UWB is the fastest and most economical pathway for both technologies to meet the future demands of companies and end users. At the same time it is important to understand that Bluetooth is a global standard to a great extent driven by the adoption into mobile consumer devices like mobile phones, so not only is a requirement that world-wide regulation is achieved but also that it is done in a way so co-existence with future mobile standards is realised.”

Before bringing products to the global market some fundamental issues of UWB need to be resolved like interference issues for Wireless LAN, WiMax and new Cellular bands, in addition to the lack of a worldwide spectrum allocation for UWB.