A major step forward for companies pushing wireless home networks in 60GHz spectrum came recently, when all 27 EU nations approved such products in the 57GHz to 66GHz band. With 60GHz bands also approved in north America, many parts of Asia-Pacific including India and China, and in Russia and Brazil, most of the major wireless markets are now harmonized in support for this license-exempt band, which can support very high speed, short range connections. The breakthrough brought new supporters, such as Philips and STMicro, into the main standards effort for 60GHz, WirelessHD, which uses technology created by start-up SiBeam and aims to see commercial products on the market in 2010.
European standards organization ETSI has published a new version of the specification it calls ‘Harmonized Standard EN 302 217-3 (Fixed Radio Systems; Characteristics and requirements for point-to-point equipment and antennas). This adds new bands to those approved for such technologies, whether for multi-gigabit wireless networks or backhaul.
The standard now covers the 57 -59GHz, 59-64GHz, 64-66GHz, 71-76GHz and 81-86GHz frequency bands, much of it newly opened spectrum providing additional capacity.
With the updated Harmonized Standard in place, operators may use the new spectrum as soon as it is made available in the European member states. Roberto Macchi, chairman of the ETSI Working Group responsible for the document, said in a statement in July: ‘This Harmonized Standard has been developed as a very professional collaboration between manufacturers, network operators and regulators. It demonstrates that working on cutting edge technologies does not have to be difficult …. Very significantly, experts from Asia, America and Europe have worked together on this new version of ETSI EN 302 217-3, clearly indicating that its value extends way beyond Europe.’
Amid these encouraging signs, WirelessHD products are beginning to appear in Europe, and the consortium now has over 40 members, including newcomers Philips, STMicro, NXP, Funai and Yamaha. The group was founded in 2006 by Intel, Panasonic, Sony, Toshiba and SiBeam. Initial products – tested against the WirelessHD Compliance Test Program and shown off at last week’s IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin – included Panasonic’s Z1 series; LG’s LH85 and LH95 LCD TVs; and WirelessHD Adapters from Toshiba and Funai.
Some of these devices were also demonstrated at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas earlier this year, though WirelessHD is highly immature and will need significantly more adoption by mainstream CE vendors to guarantee it a position in the digital home network. We have already seen another contender for this market, UltraWideBand (in particular the Intel-backed WiMedia platform) losing momentum on disappointing real world performance and halfhearted vendor backing, though UWB could re-emerge in other guises, including in a 60GHz implementation. Other alternatives to WirelessHD include fast Wi-Fi (this community is also working on a 60GHz standard called 802.11 Very High Throughput), and proprietary offerings like WHDI from Amimon, which also has support from Samsung and Sony.