Technology News: Wireless Networking: New Spec to Grease Wheels for Wireless Gadget Data Sharing

The WiGig Alliance, a collection of over a dozen high-profile tech companies, has set the ball rolling on a new standard for wireless data transfers between consumer devices. The WiGig specification will run at 60 GHz and is designed to allow the high-speed sharing of data between devices like cameras, PCs, handsets and media players.

Over a dozen technology companies announced Thursday their participation in the Wireless Gigabit (WiGig) Alliance, an organization formed to establish a unified specification for 60 gigahertz (GHz) wireless technology. The new wireless alliance has been working behind closed doors for more than a year.

The collection of semiconductor makers and digital media device manufacturers quietly banded together to develop a new solution for faster wireless connectivity among digital devices like cameras, media players and computers.

The WiGig specification is intended make wireless file transfers 10 times faster than existing protocols like WiFi. The connectivity range will connect devices located within the same room, Ali Sadri, chairman and president of the WiGig Alliance, told TechNewsWorld. By contrast, a typical home WiFi router can send and receive signals to and from devices throughout an entire house.

The group's vision is to create a global ecosystem of interoperable products based on this specification. The standard will support a single technology for file transfers, wireless display and docking, and streaming high-definition (HD) media on a variety of devices.

"We already have been working as a group for 18 months. Now is the right time to announce that we exist," Sadri said.

Almost There

The new 60 Gigahertz (GHz) wireless standard is nearly ready for the digital device industry's adoption, according to the group. The alliance's initial phase of readying the new technology should be done by the end of this year, Sadri noted.

"It will take some time to roll out the certification process. I expect to see a staggered rollout," he said.

The next phase of the project will involve writing specifications and testing them for certification, which "will take some time," added Sadri.

Existing Limitations

The typical gadget consumer's home is filled with a motley collection of wired and wireless devices that have to be connected to other digital devices, like desktop PCs, in order to transfer files. This transfer often happens at fairly modest rates, especially when a wireless connection is established.

The WiGig standard is intended to boost that wireless connection speed.

Video, music and other digital content transferred by consumers is growing richer -- thus, file sizes are growing. Faster transfer speeds would mean less waiting for that super-sized content to load from one device to another. Another rising consumer desire is the ability to use all media on all of the different platforms throughout the house.

With WiGig, "consumers will have the freedom of mobility. They won't need wires to connect their devices," Mark Grodzinsky, marketing chair for the WiGig Alliance, told TechNewsWorld.

Why 60 GHz?

Today's wireless options are not sufficient for instantaneous downloads of uncompressed, multimedia files, streaming HD media files, and real-time gaming between multiple devices, Grodzinsky pointed out.

The goal is to use the new wireless standard to provide wireless connectivity between PCs, handsets, printers, media bridges, set-top boxes, cameras and many more devices to come. The new standard aims to hit transfer rates over 10 times faster than today's WLANs (wireless local area network), allowing users to download or transfer rich content in seconds instead of minutes.

The 60 GHz standard offers multi-gigabit speeds using a large swath of unlicensed spectrum available in most countries. This can provide access to greater bandwidth for new wireless applications with virtually no interference. The result will be robust, latency-free media streaming, according to Grodzinsky.

Legacy Included

One of the foremost objectives of the Alliance is to create a technology that would not replace existing wireless standards but enhance them. In some ways, the 60 GHZ standard will do the same things that existing wireless technology does -- only faster.

"The biggest task [was] to do it right, to build it from the bottom up," according to Grodzinsky.

"This was no simple task," echoed Sadri. "It overlapped multiple industries. Our alliance is the only organization that looked at the problem from the bottom up."

The job of creating a new wireless standard would have been much easier and faster if some mobile devices had been excluded, he commented. However, "interoperability is guaranteed. Our intention is to reuse existing WiFi technology to make all devices interoperable. Once you comply with the specifications, all wireless devices will work with it."

Player's List

The WiGig Alliance includes semiconductor, PC, consumer electronics and handheld device manufacturers. Among the companies that make up the Alliance's board of directors:

The WiGig specification is expected to be available to member companies in Q4 of 2009.