Ultrawideband has been chosen by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group as the future of Bluetooth technology. Bluetooth should establish itself as another connectivity protocol sitting on top of UWB radio.
The ability to provide 400Mbps USB wirelessly has in the past cast some doubt over the future of Bluetooth - but the specification has been saved by the prevalence of Bluetooth devices; there are just so many of them. Now, it makes sense for Bluetooth to merge with the Ultrawideband technology rather than try in vein to oppose it.
"The ultimate goal is to work towards an architecture that allows devices to take advantage of UWB data rates for scenarios requiring that speed while maintaining backward compatibly with both existing Bluetooth devices on the market and future products not requiring the higher data rate," said BT-SIG executive director Michael Foley.
With USB and FireWire already being adapted for Ultrawideband as well, it's an exciting time for wireless.