Bluetooth is ready to cooperate with UWB

The Bluetooth Special Interest Group has revealed its intention to work with the developers of wireless technology, Ultra-widband (UWB) WiMedia Alliance and the UWB Forum, to combine the strength of both technologies hoping to meet the emerging high-speed demands to transfer large files between mobile devices.

The Bluetooth Special Interest Group is a 3,400-member group whose backers include Nokia Corp., Motorola Corp. and Intel Corp.

Though the organization is still working out the details towards the architecture of the technology to take advantage of UWB, it maintains that Bluetooth will still be important to maintain backward compatibility with existing devices.

UWB allows speeds of 100 Mbps and higher, making it a far more effective way to transmit, for example, a video signal from a digital video recorder to a flat-screen monitor or a laptop without wires.

That means a UWB signal has enough bandwidth to handle a high-definition television program, which can require 22 Mbps of bandwidth for real-time streaming and viewing, plus a few other tasks at the same time.

A mix of Bluetooth and UWB may be the best option for both technologies to meet the future demands of companies and end users.

Current Bluetooth technology is capable of delivering about 1 Mbps over a range of 10 meters and the upcoming version of Bluetooth technology will be able to offer up to 3 Mbps. While, UWB allows speeds of about 100 Mbps and higher.