As a general rule, it is rare that I have time during the course of a normal business day to write an entry for my blog. Nearly all of my entries are written at an altitude of 30 thousand feet, and this one is no exception. I have read with interest all of the various comments on my recent post where I discuss some of the early product reviews for Wireless USB. I want to extend my true appreciation for those that wrote the initial reviews, as well as to those who commented on my musings (the comments received via email to our PR agency are included with permission below). Ultimately your comments are likely to reflect those of many early customers, so the feedback is welcome – even if it sometimes stings a bit. You are certainly entitled to your perspective.

So here are my thoughts. First, don’t misunderstand me, the initial Wireless USB products are certainly not speed demons. Further, they do not necessarily represent what the underlying technology is truly capable of. Rather, they represent the results of the initial standard attempting to make the vast billions of today’s wired USB devices play as seamlessly as possible with the new world of Certified Wireless USB when using a common everyday USB port. These initial results have a lot of protocol overhead, resulting in throughput of approximately 35 Mbps. Certainly fast enough for connecting to a wireless printer and in most cases more than adequate for saving files to a remote hard disk drive plugged into a wireless hub – but undoubtedly short of the inherent capability of the technology. Conversely, the early products do in fact have more throughput capability than may be apparent when connecting to a wireless hub. In particular, most have been designed to be capable of connecting to what are called native Wireless USB devices. These are devices with a native Wireless USB implementation that does not require protocol conversion. Our testing has demonstrated throughput of more than twice that of a Wireless USB hub. Further, one of our early customers had planned on introducing a product in October meant at enabling file sharing using USB adapter-type products. We had consistently measured throughput for this particular product at over 125 Mbps. Unfortunately it became the victim of late timing and was not taken to market. Though not necessarily a product of broad general interest, it would have been a useful product in so far as it would have clearly demonstrated the future potential of UWB based products.

For those of you who are wondering about what is really possible and when you will see it, let me offer an “insiders” view. For implementations which use a Cardbus card or the PCE-Express port of an ExpressCard, my expectation is that these products will average twice the throughput of the initial products for wireless hubs. Further, at CES 2008, Alereon expects to introduce some new types of video-oriented products based upon native Wireless USB implementations which today demonstrate sustained throughput over 150Mbps. As companies such as Alereon and others gain more experience with implementing Wireless USB, I expect to see products shipping by Q2 of next year that will demonstrate throughput of over 200Mbps. So, for those of you who are anxious for everyone to enter the new era of Life Without Wires™, don’t judge the full capabilities of the technology on one particular class of early protocol conversion products.

I look forward to reading your suggestions for improvements in Wireless USB as well as your other comments. I am most interested in your suggestions for new and compelling products.

Comments:
Patrick Mannion (Editor-in-Chief, TechOnline)

I agree with what he’s saying, and that’s partly reflected in my teardown (http://www.techonline.com/product/underthehood/196802178) of the Belkin router earlier this year (used Wisair’s non-WiMedia-compliant chip). It never came close to the promised rates of UWB proponents, but it did provide quick and easy setup and convenient wireless access at usable rates. Not bad for the first product out the door. I got slammed by the competition for ‘letting them off the hook’ with that last statement (which I used in my review), but I stand by it.

Looking forward to the next generation of devices…

Jon Titus (Herriman, UT)

Thanks.  Your CEO has a point, but the wired vs. wireless comparisons remain valid when people have a choice.  If I can run a wire between my PC and printer, why go wireless?  Maybe I want to clean up the plenum of wires behind my desk.  Or I want to move a printer off my desk and can’t easily run a wire the kids won’t trip on.  So, I want to know what options and tradeoffs I have.  Maybe I’ll keep the wired mess behind my desk in exchange for a faster USB connection.

In some cases, wireless USB may provide the only communication medium–much like a cell phone in a car.  Then I’d agree that comparison of wired vs. wireless connections make no sense except to let people know the difference in the capabilities of the media.  People should know not to expect the same performance from wireless USB that they get from a wired connection.  To get that information across, someone must compare wired and wireless operation.

Bill Ray (The Register)

Interesting to see the problems of having a new category of product haven’t gone away: I remember the same accusations being leveled at Bluetooth when it first came along.  When reviewers have nothing to compare the product to then they tend to come unstuck.

At The Register we’ve only reviewed one Wireless USB device, the Icron WiRanger, and as that requires mains power at both ends it’s not really wireless as you describe.

Wireless USB is taking a little longer to penetrate on this side of the pond, and it will be interesting to see how the products are reviewed, but I suspect it’s going to take a few years before people start to realise what you can do with the technology.

Jason Salzenstein (National Style & Travel Editor, EDGE Publications)

Hmm… interesting, but as an often jaded and sometimes bitchy writer myself, I have to say that he sounds a bit out of place. Or in need of stronger PR to spin it in a different way- and by that I DON’T mean that you guys aren’t doing a good job, but rather than instead of defending his product against mis-informed reviewers, perhaps it would be better to either focus on making a better product, or forgetting the bad reviews and focusing on other customers/angles…

I understand what he’s saying, but as someone who deals with and writes for basic (i.e. “stupid”) consumers, I also know that they don’t care about comparing apples to apples; if it seems like it even could be similar to something else, the average person wants it to perform like that ’something else,’ regardless of whether it should or not, technically speaking. Because as we know, it’s not about reality, but perception, and if the customer perceived the products to be the same, then they are- and whomever can bring that into reality (just like mobile phones were brought up to the same quality as home phones) wins.

Just my thoughts.

Glenn Fleishman (Editor, Wi-Fi Networking News)

You’re ignoring price. People shouldn’t pay $200 for the convenience of cutting one cable.

Wireless USB will shine when the radios are built into peripherals and the drivers ship with the operating systems. Then you’ll have devices scattered around, no driver installation and management, and the benefits you’re talking about — and not spend $200 for the privilege of cutting a single wire.

See also, Maury Wright’s blog: “Wireless USB exec questions press reviews based on actual specs“

This entry was posted on Monday, November 19th, 2007 at 12:36 pm and is filed under Wireless USB. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.