Ultra-wideband: Principles, practices and potential

The prime radio spectrum is a non-depleting but finite natural resource that is highly congested in a small set of bands such as the unlicensed and "PCS" bands - but unbelievably underutilized over most of the other allocated frequencies. Enter Ultra-Wideband. Ultra-wideband may be the most over-hyped technology to surface within the past few years, but with 7.5 GHz of available and unlicensed spectrum and a little imagination, it poses a tremendous opportunity to drive a whole new generation of wireless devices. This paper, which is primarily informational in nature, highlights some of the fundamental issues surrounding the use of Ultra-wideband for wireless communications and also discusses its forecasted role in the evolution of future wireless systems.