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Unwiring the USB

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PCQ Bureau
New Update

USB is officially untethered now. What allowed you till yesterday to plug in

your digicam, MP3 player, or any other hardware device, now requires you only to

place your device within a definite radius around your PC, to perform the same

USB functions. In other words, you no longer need a wire running to your PC.

Thanks to Wireless USB (WUSB).

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According to Universal Serial Bus-Implementers Forum (USB-IF), Wireless USB

is the first wireless personal interconnect technology, which is backward

compatible with wired USB, and allows users to connect up to 127 devices, and

promises a bandwidth of up to 480 MBps at a range of 4 metres and 110 MBps at 10

metres. It is based on the WiMedia Alliance Ultra-Wideband Common Radio

Platform, and its development began in February 2004, with the formation of the

Wireless USB Promoter Group, which consisted of Agere Systems, HP, Intel,

Microsoft, NEC, Philips Semiconductors, and Samsung. A year later, the Wireless

USB specification was completed and in June 2006, the USB-IF carried out its

first ever demonstration of the WUSB, using an Intel host adapter, by

transferring a HD video from a Philips wireless semiconductor system, using an

XP OS.



Though not directly, WUSB has a connection with the WiMedia Alliance, a body
that regulates and sustains interoperability of Ultra-Wideband (UWB). Presently,

WUSB uses UWB platform, while other protocols like Bluetooth are expected to

follow soon.

Direct Hit!
Applies To:

USB users



USP: Use USB connectivity wirelessly


Primary Link:


http://www.wimedia.org/




Google Keywords: WUSB

In the same league



The obvious comparison for WUSB would be with Bluetooth and WiFi, and though

one might like to believe that all three are doing the same thing, the idea of

WUSB is to provide a high bandwidth protocol. It works for a shorter range than

WiFi, but with higher transfer rate than Bluetooth, which works on the same 2.4

GHz radio device. Subtly put, the idea of WUSB is to trace the middle path

between Bluetooth and WiFi.



Interestingly, the only other company that has embarked into the WUSB space is
Motorola powered Freescale Semiconductors, with its offering called Direct

Sequence UWB, which transmits a series of low power pulses at frequencies in the

range of 3.1 GHz to 10.6 GHz. However, no manufacturer has begun making products

that use this protocol yet.

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The most important element of WUSB is the Micro-scheduled Management Command

(MMC) that helps 'seek and find' a Wireless USB cluster (a virtual wireless

network formed by wireless devices found in the area), understands its working,

manages power, and schedules data transmissions as fast as possible. WUSB also

contains a UWB information frame, with multiple elements, each taking care of a

particular function. Unlike USB, WUSB does not use the Start of Frame (SOF) mode

of sending information as packets to the device for synchronization. In turn, it

uses MMC to transmit information queries to the connected devices at regular

intervals.

Looking back



Wireless USB, in a way, is a product of natural progression that was to

happen sooner or later. What began as a first generation plug-n-play system that

operated at a speed of 12 mbps, morphed in 2000, into a high performance data

transfer mechanism called USB 2.0, which currently delivers up to 480 mbps—a 40

fold rise in data transfer rate. USB exterminated a term called 'parallel port'

from the hardware engineer's dictionary, and most peripheral devices chose to

make do with this system, offering their products in only the USB compatible

format. More than anything, it was the printer manufacturers who embraced USB

the most, besides lifestyle portables. The next obvious graduation would be to

make these devices 'talk' to your PC or laptop wirelessly.

First line of products featuring

wireless USB (clockwise)-Lenovo Thinkpad T61, D-Link USB 4-port hub, IOGEAR

USB hub with adapter kit, and Dell Inspiron 1720
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Compatible products



Coinciding with the official launch of WUSB, the USB-IF announced a list of

hardware products that passed its compliance and certification tests. Dell's

Inspiron, and Lenovo's Thinkpad have been the first to incorporate WUSB to their

machines, with D-Link and IOGEAR being the first to create connectivity

hardware. This includes Dell's Inspiron 1720, priced upwards of $900

internationally, which is powered by Intel's Core 2 Duo T5250 chipset, an anti

glare 17 inch display and a 120 GB SATA hard drive. The Thinkpad, however, seems

to be getting a bad reputation of a 'station wagon' since it's a little bulky

for its class, but claims to be the first to incorporate WUSB compatibility. It

gives customers the option of choosing an Intel or nVIDIA graphics card, and is

positioned as a business-only machine.

On the other hand, D-Link's wireless adapter and hub has an interesting

concept to back it up—the hub is essentially something which allows you to

connect multiple devices with it. The adapter, however, has a flip that you open

and plug into the USB socket of your PC or laptop, after which it wirelessly

syncs up to the hub, in turn connecting with any device found in the range of 30

metres.

Adoption



These devices are only the initial handful to embrace WUSB. What one can

really expect here to find many applications around WUSB coming up, in a few

months. Take Bluetooth for instance. What began as a short-range mode of

communication between two devices, Bluetooth saw itself being known as the

mobile connectivity technology. An estimated 600 million Bluetooth devices were

shipped world over in 2006 according to a survey conducted by the Bluetooth

Special Interest Group. Now picture a technology that communicates with your

mobile device 500 times faster than Bluetooth, and works more efficiently at

shorter ranges. All we need for that to happen is somebody out there to sync up

WUSB for mobile applications. This is assuming that the upcoming models of

digicams, music players, printers and other hardware devices will come with WUSB

compatibility.

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The road ahead



For now, the biggest compelling thing that stands out is the fact that

Wireless USB is backward compatible. According to a survey conducted by

corporate analysts, In-Stat, there are 11 million wireless devices in the world

today, and this number can easily be expected to double, by 2010. In absence of

WUSB, it would simply mean so many more wires, crisscrossing each other and

creating one big jungle of wired devices. The way things are going currently,

WUSB is well capable of becoming a standard every hardware manufacturer swears

by, and in the long run, may reduce manufacturing costs as well.

But data errors could still be a concern, especially if the information

packets are bigger, and if you try to send it to the last mile. Anyways it still

scores over the wired USB for which the range is zero.

Vishnu Anand

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