We're taking a bit of a break to be with our loved ones over the holiday, and we hope you are too. A very Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you, and we'd like to pass along a heartfelt "Thank You" for your readership. We'll be back posting again tomorrow once we can burn off some of the egg nog!

Ultra wideband technology, which has sort of fallen by the wayside ever since the effort to define a single standard fell through a while back, may have gotten some much-needed momentum with the approval by the European Commission's Radio Spectrum Committee to allow UWB to be used on the continent.

Despite a number of issues raised by some groups who argue that UWB has the potential to interfere with other wireless services because it transmits low power over a wide band of spectrum, the EU says it will allow supporters and manufacturers of UWB-enabled products to move forward to eventually introduce it into the marketplace sometime next year.

Of course, after all of the battling to define a single standard, it remains to be seen if in the long run UWB can gain any sort of niche in the wireless arena. Even though the Bluetooth Special Interest Group has seen fit to align itself with UWB supporters, it may not be enough to sustain it over the long haul. But, we'll just have to wait and see how it all shakes out.

A new study from Frost and Sullivan indicates that sales of ultrawideband (UWB) and ZigBee chipsets will increase significantly over the next three years.

I can't help but be a bit skeptical over this new research. We've seen over the past couple of years the turf war over the definition of a single standard for UWB, and that effort fell right on its face. Plus, we were supposed to see a slew of products being released over the course of this year, including those dealing with home entertainment. So far, we haven't seen anything yet. To be fair, we do have a few months left in the year and the holiday shopping season around the corner, so there is still time left for this wireless technology to make some sort of impact on the marketplace.

With regard to ZigBee, it definitely is finding a niche in the home automation market, especially in the security/alarm sector. It doesn't appear that ZigBee will ever become a "hit" like Bluetooth, but if it can find a couple of strong niches to park itself in, that will be just fine for its supporters.

The city of Omaha, Nebraska is working in concert with the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO) to develop and deploy a free wireless network that would be available in certain parts of the city.

The plan is to offer coverage beyond the college's campus to the city's riverfront and Old Market as well as areas that house low-income residents.

According to city officials, the goal of Wireless Omaha is to bring wireless internet access to all who want it as well as to bridge the digital divide. In addition, the network is targeted to those who would use it for e-mail and web surfing and not advanced applications.

The network is being funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation and the partners are looking for other funding to deploy the network.

As we charge into the Memorial Day weekend and right into the glorious summer season, here are five stories from the past week that will get your juices flowing. Enjoy!

1. The Wireless Report Podcast -- May 24, 2006
   We are pleased to bring you the fourth installment of The Wireless Report Podcast. We'll be talking about all the recent developments in citywide WiFi -- including talking about Phoenix, Philadelphia and New York City. Additionally, we'll cover New York City's "Central Park" WiFi experiment -- and we'll cover the recent National Security Agency (NSA) situation regarding possible wiretap illegalities, and how this could encroach into wireless carriers here in the U.S. -- but we sure hope not.
2. EarthLink wins approval to build wireless network in New Orleans
   The rebuilding of New Orleans continues as EarthLink has won approval from the City Council to build a wireless network within a 15-square-mile area. As with similar networks they are building in cities such as Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Anaheim, the network will have a free service and a paid service tier. The free service will be available for a limited time at speeds up to 300kbs, and the paid service will offer speeds up to 1 mpbs.
3. Will customers buy -- and watch -- mobile TV?
   We've said it before -- for mobile television to take off, there must be a unified standard and the cost must be priced right. Looking at the current situation, we're not even close. With MediaFLO and DVB-H standing out as the two standards, and will many mobile television standards sitting around waiting for business, when will the industry get it together and make things easier than this?
4. Secure your home wireless network or else this will happen to you
   We've warned you before about the perils of wireless signal piggybacking and how if you do have a home wireless network, you should take every step necessary to protect it from being hacked by "piggybackers" aka burglars. Here's another example of why you should.
5. Egad! Wireless complaints dropped in first quarter of 2006
   We generally hear about the rise in complaints against the wireless companies -- particularly against the top players like Cingular and Verizon Wireless (probably because they are easy targets). But in the first quarter of this year, wireless complaints and inquiries both dropped from the fourth quarter of 2005.
   

We haven't talked much about ultra wideband (UWB) technology in quite a while here. When the competition to define and ratify a single standard broke off last year, some analysts thought this was a near-death blow to the technology.

However, it seems that the fact there are two competing standards hasn't fazed manufacturers from building devices embedded with UWB. A new study from ABI Research indicates that roughly 300 million devices with UWB will be shipped by 2011, proving that the technology still remains viable.

But, needless to say, there may be some storm clouds on the horizon. Factors such as global spectrum and regulatory approval, along with cost, power consumption, and and chip size, have to be considered.

In any event, despite all the difficulties, UWB still has a pulse, and we should be a variety of products on the market in the near future.

This isn't exactly breaking news, but it still is an interesting development. The Bluetooth Special Industry Group (SIG) and the WiMedia Alliance are announcing they will be working with their respective member companies to develop products that will incorporate both Bluetooth and ultra wideband technologies in order to boost transmission speed. As a result, products like cellphones and iPods will be able to download and play large video files, among other types of files.

According to the SIG, products should be entering the marketplace by late 2007 (just in time for the holiday shopping season?) with more to come the following year. As Bluetooth has evolved into a nearly ubiquitous technology, especially for cellphones, it seems this melding with UWB would bode well for both to grow and continue to penetrate the marketplace. Ultra wideband has been trying to gain a toehold in the wireless marketplace, and especially with the battle over the definition of a standard, it certainly seems like a step in the right direction.

This week's vote which dissolved the IEEE Task Group that was working to ratify a single UWB standard has certainly cause a few ripples in the wireless technology circles, but it seems the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) isn't really fazed by what's been going on.

Earlier last year, it looked like the SIG and UWB supporters were looking for ways to join the technologies together for various applications, and things seemed to point to something of substance was going to occur sometime this year. The SIG says it is currently studying how UWB and Bluetooth can co-exist, especially in power consumption and mobile devices.

With the various UWB spec groups now going off in different directions, it'll be interesting to see if one of them will strike an agreement with the SIG or the Bluetooth group will look to play every hand possible and work with all of them.

As was speculated earlier this week, the IEEE Task Group (TG3a) charged with the task of determining and ratifying a single ultra wideband standard has voted to disband. Obviously, the fight between the WiMedia Alliance and the UWB Forum and their competing specs has been deemed unresolvable, so the IEEE has decided to cut bait.

As a result, the companies that comprise the members of both groups will be pretty much left to their own devices to build products that fit their faction's UWB spec. What that will mean is that we'll be seeing a bunch of products hit the marketplace that are incompatible and consumers will have to be very careful to make sure what they're buying is right for their needs. What it also means is that the IEEE pretty much threw in the towel without a fight and were pushed around by both groups without showing any mettle to get things resolved.