I haven’t been writing about technology lately because I don’t want to give away what I’m working on. But this article is worthy of comment because it relates to a watershed moment in networking. The MBOA, a consortium of 80+ networking and consumer electronics companies, has agreed to a baseline standard for a new protocol that combines prioritized asynchronous and isochronous access into a single system that operates without a centralized controller:
A key requirement for the MAC is decentralization, along with the notion that every node will announce its connections and with whom its exchanging data. “So every node is fully aware of what’s going on with every other node in the network, which will reduce reconnect time and latencies,” said Kimyacioglu.
To put that in layman’s terms, real-time applications like voice and video can run on this network as well as they would on a dedicated, wired system, sharing the network with Internet access. While it doesn’t correct the design deficiencies in the Internet, it points the way to the resolution of these problems in the future. I was very happy to contribute to this effort, which reminded me of a similar gathering in the same town (Phoenix) exactly 20 years ago that created twisted-pair Ethernet. This new MBOA system could very easily be just as successful.
Some commenters are confused about what’s going on with UWB, thinking there’s a real conflict between MBOA and Motorola. There’s really not a fight here, because it’s 80 companies against 1, and the outcome at the consumer level is perfectly clear.
UPDATE: Glenn Fleishman believes Moto may try and fight a battle with MBOA over intellectual property to create confusion in the consumer market. Given the advantage that MBOA has over them, I suspect MBOA’s response to that threat would be something in the nature of “bring it on.”
I’m not confused. The MBOA is 80 companies, but I think it’s premature to say that Motorola’s intended UWB specification will lose. There are too many variables in this. My main intent is note that the MBOA has entirely exited the IEEE process.
Now I see why you thought I was confused. I’m not saying that Motorola and 80 companies are on even footing. Rather, that Motorola will bring its products to market and so will the MBOA. Even positing this early that the MBOA’s technology will win, you will still have a market potentially full of Motorola and XtremeSpectrum technology.
Another factor. Xtreme has many patents in this field. In the IEEE process, patents for standards must be licensed on reasonable and customary terms to all parties. With the MBOA out of the IEEE process, the likelihood of patent lawsuits dramatically increases with Motorola funding it as an effort to maintain a disruptive marketplace in which they can maintain their hold on manufacturing partners.
Of course Motorola bet early and long on HomeRF, too.
Motorola has everything they need to succeed in the UWB except two things: a viable technology and some customers to use it. It’s not likely that more than one major consumer products company will actually ship product with Motorola’s DS-CDMA, but several are working on MBOA products.
As to the intellectual property, there’s actually a lot more of it on the MBOA side, especially with the MAC protocol, and given Motorola’s split into two companies, they’re not going to be in a position to do much damage on that front either. Motorola’s behavior in IEEE 802.15.3a has been reprehensible, and they deserve the fate that’s in store for them.
This will all become a lot more clear around December of this year.
Remember that Motorola’s acquisition XtremeSpectrum already had signed consumer electronics deals. Unless those were bogus, those companies may come to market even if Motorola’s house brand solution does not.
I doubt that anybody has a binding deal with XSI for any significant quantity of parts, Glenn. Most of the support they’ve shown in 802 has come from research organizations like CRL, not from actual consumer products companies. There is only one company of significant size that folks in the know believe to be a potential shipper of DS-CDMA, but they’re split into two camps internally.