Wireless networking is nothing new, but most of the technologies we’re used to, such as Wifi and Bluetooth, are intended for a small number of uses and on specific frequencies.

But there’s a new kid on the block, with products ready to ship as soon as the final regulatory hurdles are approved.

Ultrawideband, or UWB, has the potential to change dramatically the way we connect devices in our homes and offices. So, what’s so special about it, and how does it work?

Computers and radio are hardly strangers; it’s difficult to buy a laptop without a wireless internet connection these days, and most have Bluetooth as well. Some of you will have an iMac or desktop PC with a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse. Others will use a Wifi connection to the internet from a desktop PC.

Whatever combination you have, there are nonetheless going to be wires for the keyboard, printer, digital camera and screen. It ought to be simple to replace some or all of these with wireless alternatives, but anyone who lives in an urban area with a lot of electrical interference will have realised that wireless networking can be prone to disruption, causing signals to drop out or data transfers to slow down. Adding more conventional radio to an already noisy area isn’t necessarily going to improve things.

Step forward UWB. It’s quite a simple idea; instead of using a small piece of the radio spectrum, in UWB signals are broadcast over a large area of the waveband. Originally conceived for ‘stealth radar’, it’s now at the heart of the latest data transmission technology. The idea is that by doing this, you can convey a lot of information in a short time. The more radio spectrum you use, the more data you can transmit.

Another key aspect of UWB is that it’s intended to work at short range with low power ­ up to about 10m. With more power, you’d risk interfering with a wide range of other radio services.

After a few years of dithering and delay, UWB is set to hit the streets this year, with the first products making their appearance based on a standard called Wimedia UWB. These products will offer a wireless version of USB called, rather obviously, Wireless USB.

Why are we waiting?
Before we look at more detail of exactly how the latest UWB products work, it’s worth observing why it has taken so long for them to appear. There are two issues: technical and regulatory. The first boiled down to different implementations and the usual spat between competing interest groups that so bedevils computing standards. But the end result was a specification called Wimedia, which has now been adopted by most in the industry, finally ensuring that there should be compatibility between different products.

The second delay is licensing; UWB uses a broad chunk of the radio spectrum, from 3.1GHz to 10.6GHz, and for a new technology such as this to take off it needs to be approved for use in as many countries as possible. While the US approved it some time ago, in the UK Ofcom’s statutory instrument (a sort of amendment to the law) only came into force on 21 August 2007 ­ a deadline set by the EU for implementation in all member states (see www.ofcom.org.uk for more details).

Arguably another reason for the delay in seeing UWB products is that the Wimedia UWB standard itself is complex. That’s not to say it can’t be built cheaply, but it has been designed from the outset to be flexible, so that it won’t be tied to a single purpose and find itself obsolete in a few years.

While most of the products that will appear this year are likely to focus on wireless USB, Wimedia UWB can support much more than that. It can also carry wireless IEEE 1394 (Firewire), Bluetooth and other protocols. That’s crucial because it means that if you have a Bluetooth mobile phone, a USB printer and a Firewire hard drive, in future they may all be wireless. If each had its own unique wireless version, the chances are they might interfere, as with 2.4GHz wireless TV senders, microwave ovens and Wifi, all of which can interfere with each other. But with all those systems potentially using Wimedia UWB, it’s possible to ensure that they co-ordinate with each other to avoid interference.