Top OEMs Form Rival Spec for Wireless Multimedia

Another consortium of top technology firms has banded together to promote a high-speed wireless interface, this time taking on the intersection between wireless video transmission and data.

The Wireless Gigabit Alliance (WiGig) includes chip vendors like Atheros, Broadcom, and Intel; OEMs like NEC, Panasonic, and Samsung, as well as Microsoft and a secretive startup, known as Wilocity.

On the surface, the alliance seems very similar to WirelessHD, a group of companies, some of them sharing membership in both groups, that also are targeting 60-GHz wireless technology. The advantage of 60-GHz networks is that they are currently unlicensed, and the spectrum is available internationally, in the United States, Japan, Europe and Asia. On the surface, the alliance seems very similar to WirelessHD, a group of companies, some of them sharing membership in both groups, that also are targeting 60-GHz wireless technology. The advantage of 60-GHz networks is that they are currently unlicensed, and the spectrum is available internationally, in the United States, Japan, Europe and Asia.

Both seek to use frequency wireless links to transmit data, and have apparently approached the problem from different directions. WirelessHD was formed to use the technology to replace HDMI cables in the living rooms as a high-speed point-to-point link for audio and visual data. At CES, however, the company showed off wireless transmission via an extension to its specification. Meanwhile, WiGig executives spoke more generally about transmitting data, which could include multimedia components, and also about obtaining HDCP 2.0 certification.

WiGig has its roots in the 802.11VHT working group, which split into the 802.11ac working group to enhance the performance of traditional 2.4- and 5-GHz networks, and 802.11ad, which covers the 60-GHz technology.

In an interview, Bill McFarland, the chief technical officer at Atheros, said that the goal of WiGig was to encourage "co-existence" of the different wireless technologies using the 60-GHz band, and that the group would sponsor interoperability tests similar to the Wi-Fi Alliance.

WiGig's specification will be done by the end of 2009, said Ali Sadri, chairman of the WiGig Alliance and the director of wireless PAN standards at Intel. Testing will begin soon after that. "A lot has been completed already," Sadri said.

The question, to some, is how the standards will co-exist with others already in the market, especially WirelessHD.

Intel has been heavily involved in the work being done in the 802.11VHT groups, with one Intel engineer, Eldad Perahia, listed as the author of both the sub-60-GHz design document as well as the 60-GHz group. But it's also thought that the specifications aren't due for a year or two. If that's true, wondered John Marshall, the chairman of the WirelessHD consortium, there's a question of how an industry group would be able to guide an engineering consortium.

"What has usually happened is that the IEEE publishes a spec and the Wi-Fi Alliance cherry-picks what they want to support and designs interoperability testing" and logo certifications," Marshall said. "If I understand this right, this would be the opposite."

If special-interest groups differentiate with one another, then there's an opportunity for co-existence, Marshall added. "Hypothetically speaking, if they're saying the same thing as WirelessHD does, then they're trying to pick a fight with WirelessHD."

When asked about competition, WiGig's Sadri said that the alliance had no intention of competing with WirelessHD, a sentiment Marshall shared. "We have no intention of competing with any other 60-GHz technology," Sadri said. "I'm hoping that we can reach out and collaborate in terms of understanding each other."

John LeMoncheck, the chief executive of SiBEAM, which provides the technology behind the WirelessHD technology, said he was pleased that the industry was finally taking notice of the 60-GHz technology. "When we started in 2004, I gotta be honest with you," he said. "We were laughed out of some rooms for talking about 60-GHz technology."

The final differentiator may be products. SiBEAM and Panasonic have already collaborated on a wireless HDTV which is on sale in Japan. But Panasonic also signed on to the WiGig group, as well.