Short range wireless tech market set to unfold

In the world of increasing technology options, several new short-range wireless technologies are waiting for widespread incorporation into mobile phones.

These wireless technologies will enable new applications like faster data downloading, cheaper voice over IP and secure electronic transactions. This will translate into higher revenues for service providers and component and equipment vendors.

But, to increase the adoption of such technologies and instill confidence in the user in devices using them these technologies will require a certain amount of predictiveness.

Speaking on the work being done by MindTree Consulting in short-range wireless technologies, Vinod P Deshmukh, executive vice president and CTO said, adoption of these technologies will depend on connectivity, interoperability and security.

"Technology should work with any device, must be secure and cheap," he said. He said, the bandwidth (bit per second), power and the maturity of the technology are also key to the adoption of technology.

In the personal area network space which includes Bluetooth, where almost 5 million devices are produced every week, Deshmukh said that the data transfer rate is about 1 megabyte per second. This implies that the technology can be used for voice data transfer also.

Another technology, ultra wide band (UWB), can transfer data at much higher rates of 450 megabytes per second and can be used for high video data transfer. The ZigBee technology, which transfers data at lesser rates of 20 kilobytes per second can be used for automation of home appliances. For example, "Washing machines and geysers can be remotely operated."

Deshmukh added, by 2010 over 9 billion devices will have at least one of these technologies in them. The R&D in Bluetooth technology by MindTree started in April 2000 and in the five years the company has invested about $2.5 million in it.

Subroto Bagchi, MindTree COO, said the company is getting "fabulous returns" and customer acceptance to the investment made.

An apt example of this is that Japan-based NEC Corporation has agreed to integrate Bluetooth wireless technology into its GSM phones. MindTree will have the IP for the Bluetooth technology.