The WiFi Alliance’s certification program for peer-to-peer device connectivity won’t launch until next summer, but the organization is nearing completion of a new specification to enable this hot spot-free WiFi connectivity. Products that achieve certification based on the new standard will be dubbed WiFi Certified WiFi Direct.
Previously code-named ‘WiFi peer-to-peer,’ the specification can be implemented in any WiFi device and allows it to connect to most legacy WiFi certified devices already in use. The specification enables quick connections between devices for transferring content or P2P communication between devices without joining a home, office or hot spot network. Connections can be one-to-one or between a group of several devices connecting simultaneously.
The Alliance is targeting both consumer electronics and enterprise applications with management features for enterprises and WPA2 security. A WiFi device that supports the specification will be able to discover another certified device within range and advertise its available services. Companies including Ozmo Devices, which provides low-power WiFi personal area networks, are already getting behind the specification. Ozmo announced today its plans to support WiFi Direct in its products. Other WiFi Alliance members include Cisco, Apple, Intel and nearly 300 others.
The WiFi Direct specs have a good chance of making a dent on the competition, which now includes Bluetooth, routers and alternative home networking standards. According to ABI Research, wireless connections in CE devices will remain the dominant technology even with home network technologies like coax and powerline making inroads. Wi-Fi connections in CE devices will rise from 113 million in 2008 to more than 285 million by 2012, including digital TVs, the firm found.
The new WiFi Direct specification will be competitive with Bluetooth technology, which also makes device-to-device connections. Here’s a response from a reader about global alternatives to WiFi:
As an editor of a “technological” newschannel, Most of us will expect that you (a) know something about what you write about, and (b) that you write about novelties. I know that math had been much easier if the circumference of the circle was 4 times its diameter – just as for a square.
Also, for some novelty to gain foothold, it needs to be better than available technology or supported by extensive marketing effort.
Well, Bluetooth servers the existing device- to-device market. It is not based on 802.11, WiFi or any on the related protocols, but it uses the same radio frequencies. Since Bluetooth is based on DECT telephony, it is made to not interfere with other devices, and will skip “channels” in the frequency range that is allocated that is used by others. So, it will consistently change radio frequency, and can coexist with WLAN, since this will use one channel only – which it will avoid. The channels are not the same as in WLAN. This change of frequency makes it difficult to “tap into” unless you have been authorized and know the “next” frequency band it will use. The Bluetooth allows “peer-to-peer” communication, so it needs to “Access point” or “base station” as WLAN. Fully expanded it will also support roaming: access to similar network resources and use these as routers. The technology is based on chordless handset technology – DECT so handsets already exists.
Since use is based on “pairing” – no radio planning is used, just grant the device access to e.g.the printer, and after that, the “printer” will know of the access device, and the access devide will recognise the printer.
The IEEE 802.11 group of technologies are so different that it is utter nonsense to compare them. Even worse to predict “mobile” usage, where there is no channel separation to cater for the “Doppler effect” caused by the velocity / speed between the objects. All technologies described are stationary or pedestrian.
Now, so you know very little about the technology you write about, your purpose is to promote some technology.
If you are to promote technology, do not try to market something where a better alternative is on the market – but not made in the US. Had you skipped the remark about Bluetooth being “based” on 802.11 – I would accepted that it was blunt ignorance. Since you refer to this, I see it as a deliberate attempt to belittle a foreign technology to claim benefit of some US invention.
The problem is that where consumers are allowed to choose the best, and do not need huge marketing campaigns to launch “competitive” technology. Nor do we outside the US waste time to “invent” a competing technology that we know is lesser. In DECT, it is fully possible to achieve transmission above 10Mbps – and change modulation, 40Mbps should be no problem. That would be a real competitor to WiFi, since existing DECT chipsets may be used, and just change modulation for the data transmission (as GSM does). At that moment, US laptops will be equipped with WLAN, and all others will be fitted with DECT/DPRS chips. DECT/DPRS is not possible to use in the US, because of American frequency allocations – but can use the same radio world wide. The technology is not mobile – can at the best to 30 mph. But, it requires no programming, and will support adding peripheral devices and share these – since it is a peer-to-peer technology. The DECT protocol supports the SS7 signalling suite, and allows a terminal to be used as a switch – and with routing at application level, you can implement “dynamic mesh” networking. Dual handsets for DECT and GSM was made 10 years ago – and most have handsets have Bluetooth – not WLAN. It is easy to “pair” with a Bluetooth earplug – and that has been done the last 10 years.
The radio frequency is the final problem, and is the reason the the Pi=4 remark. 2.4GHz has at 0.5W the possibility to travel 300 feet when unobstructed. Increase the frequency to 3.5GHz, and the radio signals will loose around 30dB running through glass, a double glassed window will stop it (60dB), and a wall of plaster more than 40dB. That makes the technology unsuited a regular office environment. So, the technology is only applicable at “line of sight” – the printer has to be unobstructed for the laptop. Your marketing cannot change the laws of physics whatever hard you try.
So what is left is to start to use some foreign technology – that is “better”. You can use Google/Yahoo or Altavista to find information about DECT and Bluetooth. The engineers at Ericsson that defined Bluetooth used to work in their DECT division. So then “WiFi’s final frontier”, 802.11 was never made for devices to co-exist so we do not need WiFi to connect devices.