True to its cautious style, The Federal Communications Commission has shied from committing to a definite ruling on the ultra-wideband technology, which has divided the various players into two camps.
One group is led by Motorola Inc., and the other is led by both Texas Instruments Inc. and Intel Corp.
The FCC has pushed the burden of a decision to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
“We urge the IEEE to perform the technical analyses to ensure that any UWB standard it develops will not cause levels of interference beyond that already anticipated by the rules,” wrote Julius Knapp, director of the FCC’s Office of Engineering and Technology. “This information will be needed to support any necessary FCC rules interpretations or other appropriate action for the chosen standard.”
The FCC statement followed a request from Motorola Inc. and Xtremespectrum for an FCC clarification.
In a meeting earlier this year, all the players could not reach an agreement on the standard. Although the majority supported the TI and Intel-led proposal known as the multiband-OFDM, it fell short of the 75 percent of votes needed to pass. It garnered only 60 percent.
All the companies will converge again in Singapore Sept. 15 for another crack at a solution.
