Wireless USB gadgets trickle into marketplace

Wireless USB, a cable-free version of the ubiquitous device connection technology, is finally becoming a product and not just a promise.

Last week, Belkin announced a Wireless USB hub, and Lenovo debuted its T61p notebook, which will support Wireless USB as an option. This week, a raft of other PC and peripheral makers are expected to announce their products.

And not a moment too soon: Wireless USB (Universal Serial Bus) is arriving about a year later than promised. And other wireless communication standards, Bluetooth and 802.11 Wi-Fi networking, are established already.

"It's time for Wireless USB to move from the PowerPoint slides to the real world," said iSuppli analyst Jagdish Rebello.

If it lives up to its backers' hopes, it will spread in coming years to printers, hard drives, set-top boxes, cameras, digital music players and mobile phones. Several products, including PCs and hubs, are now in testing to receive the "Certified Wireless USB" logo, said Jeff Ravencraft, president and chairman of the USB Implementers Forum.

Chicken and egg
Like wired USB was more than a decade ago, Wireless USB is a classic example of a "chicken-and-egg" technology problem, where two parts of the industry depend on each other to make products useful. In the case of Wireless USB, the parties involved are, on the one hand, computer makers who must build Wireless USB support into their PCs and, on the other, device makers whose products are at the other end of those connections.

Wireless hub products could help jump-start the industry by bridging from the existing wired USB world to a wireless future, and Belkin competitors likely will announce their own products as soon as this week. Such systems typically have two components: a "dongle" that plugs into a PC's wired USB port and gives the computer Wireless USB abilities, and a hub with four wired USB ports for connecting current devices.

The dongle can communicate with future Wireless USB-enabled products and, of course, with the hub. And next-generation PCs with Wireless USB built-in will be able to communicate with the hub and whatever wired USB devices are plugged into it. Wireless USB has a maximum range of about 30 feet but isn't designed to penetrate walls.

Strong backers of Wireless USB include companies such as Staccato Communications, WiQuest Communications and Alereon.

iSuppli expects the market for Wireless USB radio-communication chipsets to grow from $15 million in 2007 to $2.6 billion in 2011. That growth matches the expected spread of the technology, from 1 million Wireless USB-enabled devices this year to 500 million in 2011.

Much of Wireless USB will work like today's USB, only without the cables. But Mike Krell, Alereon's director of communications and business development, likes to paint pictures of new possibilities as well. For example, a digital camera user could store photos to a separate portable hard drive with much more capacity than a flash memory card, or download them to a photo-printing kiosk without worrying about having the right cable or memory card support. The user could also display the pictures on a big-screen TV on the other side of a room.

"I want to put my camera on the coffee table and look at them on a 60-inch screen," Krell said, and not be tethered by a short cable.

[IlanaGolan]

Still giggling

I'm having a fine giggle at being the first comment on this article. What's wrong guys? No opportunity in this one for Mac-MS bashing?

[ewelch]

Why bash?

The article was pretty accurate. It was Apple's iMac that finally
broke the chicken-egg logjam. Peripheral makers finally had a
computer that broke completely with the old interfaces (serial
and parallel) and gave them something to create USB peripherals
for. PCs then followed quickly after that.

Just like WiFi, Apple was a year ahead of the rest with putting
the capability in all of their laptops. Dell was second almost a
year to day day later.

But when the rest took off with USB, they quickly outpaced even
Apple's superior Firewire technology. So now even iPods have
gone with the much slower USB 2 interface. (Theoretical limits
are a joke, Firewire 400 is much faster in actual practice.)

If Apple was smart, they'd put wireless USB in the new iMac due
out soon and take the lead once more. Maybe with their
increasing market share (growing twice as fast as PCs these
days) they could have a faster impact on the overall industry.
Dell, I'm betting would follow within months.

[cuwickliffe]

Why?

Just at first glance, I don't understand why we need wireless USB. Bluetooth does exactly the same thing, and already works at the same range. What's the advantage?

[flitcraft33]

AM I THE ONLY ONE ON CRAZY PILLS??!??

Hello, make a wi-fi USB dongle that plugs into ANY USB port and wirelessly connects to a hub. Have a slot in the hub where you plug in the dongles that imprints a network serial number unique to the hub so your devices only connect to your devices.

Make the dongle a USB-wireless bridge. VOILA! no more ^&(&^($!! usb cables for ANYTHING. Make the dongles port powered.

WHY IS THIS SO HARD???? What are these people thinking with this chicken and egg BS??? Just make it work with existing devices effortlessly.

Jeeze, if I had some venture capital I would market it myself. This is not rocket science.

Dan Sichel

[Troll Hard]

This will only allow hackers

to break into your personal USB connections.

What were they thinking, man?

[Michael00360]

Wireless USB

I'm looking forward to the day that I can finally get rid of all my cables on my computer (except for the power cable. However, being that this is new technology I am willing to wait until the bugs are worked out. I hope that with this wireless technology they will go ahead and implement some kind of WPA type technology like we see in wireless routers.

[whizkid454]

Why the need for a hub?

Couldn't the Wireless USB "ports" be built into the motherboard of the computer? This would eliminate the wired connection from the hub to the physical, wired USB port. I guess this wireless hub is temporary until the technology itself is built into the motherboards?

[ethana2]

Wow.... to point something out here..

usb is inferior. And that's because it capped bandwidth: a good protocol will scale up to whatever hardware will handle. Multiple pins included. I want a protocol that will scale from wimax to pci-e.

And I don't think that's as far fetched as it sounds. More on that idea at http://www.ethana4.blogspot.com/
under "usb 3.0"

tell me what you think- [e-mail]