Ultrawideband Communications—An Idea Whose Time has Still Yet to Come? [Wireless Corner]

This paper presents a critical analysis of ultrawideband (UWB) and considers the turbulent journey it has had from the Federal Communications Commission´s bandwidth allocation in 2002 to today. It analyzes the standards, the standoffs, and the stalemate in standardization activities and investigates the past and present research and commercial activities in realizing the UWB dream. In this paper, statistical evidence is presented to depict UWB´s changing fortunes and is utilized as an indicator of future prominence. This paper reviews some of the opinions and remarks from commentators and analyzes predictions that were made. Finally, it presents possible ways forward to reignite the high-data-rate UWB standardization pursuit.