WASHINGTON — Federal regulators are on the verge of approving a breakthrough wireless technology backed by Intel Corp., Sony Corp. and other big names that could revolutionize the consumer electronics industry.
The technology, known as ultra-wideband, could provide very high-speed wireless Internet access and facilitate other wireless capabilities such as allowing consumers to track intruders with home radar, helping rescuers find earthquake victims and greatly improving collision-avoidance systems.
More than a decade in the making, the versatile technology has been bitterly opposed by airlines and cell phone companies, which say it can cause interference with their communications systems.
The Federal Communications Commission still is negotiating with opponents, but Bruce A. Franca, acting chief of the FCC's office of engineering, said he is hopeful that an accord can be reached and that the FCC will approve the technology next month.
Last year, the FCC granted temporary permission to use ultra-wideband devices to locate victims of the World Trade Center collapse. The agency is considering permanent approval under the same FCC rules that govern such unlicensed wireless devices as cordless phones and baby monitors. New consumer products using ultra-wideband could be on the market as early as this year.
"Ultra-wideband companies are ready to go," said Jeff Ross, a vice president at TimeDomain, a Huntsville, Ala., company that has been developing the technology. He said his company is already selling ultra-wideband tracking devices to the military and some police departments. But the company and other ultra-wideband developers will mostly leave the consumer device manufacturing to others and concentrate on making the key ultra-wideband receiving transmission microchips. Ross said such chips should be ready for use in consumer equipment "in the next couple of months."
Ultra-wideband's sprint to market has been aided by its flexible technology, comparatively low cost and fortuitous timing, experts say.
Unlike most other wireless systems, which transmit signals on specific airwaves, ultra-wideband devices communicate through short pulses of low power radio energy. And they use a swath of frequencies spanning cell phones to satellite signals.
