Wireless USB startup WiQuest shuts down, leaves the standard in limbo

Let's be honest -- Wireless USB has never been much more than an afterthought. Sure, we've seen it pop up on a few laptops and USB hard drives, but it's never grabbed hold the way that, say, Bluetooth or WiFi has. On top of that, the underlying technology behind WUSB (that'd be Ultra-Wideband, or UWB) has yet to find favor in the market, with the surging WHDI stealing most of the limelight in the wireless HD arena. At any rate, one of the (only) companies keeping Wireless USB alive has kicked the bucket, as startup WiQuest officially shut its doors after being unable to concoct a "one-chip solution that was capable of delivering the upper-band support necessary for worldwide acceptance." Granted, Wireless USB isn't quite six feet under, but it's safe to say one foot is planted in the proverbial grave.

[Via jkOnTheRun]

[konshuss @ Nov 3rd 2008 9:09PM]

the very term "wireless usb" makes my brain hurt. good riddance.

[Brian @ Nov 4th 2008 12:37AM]

my thoughts exactly... how do you implement a wireless equivalent of a wire?

[E. Leigh @ Nov 3rd 2008 9:21PM]

I'm really glad that I didn't choose to incorporate UWB in my T61 config in April. Now that I read this article, I feel like my 'WTF?' feelings on this option are justified.

[Flashpoint @ Nov 3rd 2008 9:16PM]

35 HOURS TILL CHANGE.

[Prey521 @ Nov 3rd 2008 9:19PM]

HUH?

Oh you mean Obama? HAHAHAHA, change, yeah right.

[E. Leigh @ Nov 3rd 2008 9:26PM]

Change as in he's gonna take 55% of my dollar so all I will have left is 45 cents.

(end of off topic comment).

Seriously, uwb who?

[GSMSOSV @ Nov 3rd 2008 9:35PM]

35 hours until I don't have to read crap like this anymore.

[Valicore @ Nov 3rd 2008 11:00PM]

God damn it, I don't care who you support, posting political shit in random forums that have nothing to do with politics is lame. And as a sidenote, regardless of who wins, there will be change, that doesn't mean it'll be good. Lastly, just because one option is less bad than the other doesn't make good.

As for Wireless USB, that was the official USB Forum wireless standard, right? If not that, what wireless standard like it will take its place?

[Ed T @ Nov 3rd 2008 9:21PM]

The murder scene has intel's fingerprints all over it. The same is happening to UWB, Bluetooth, and FireWire. Intel's goal is to marginalize them into obliviion.

[Valicore @ Nov 3rd 2008 10:49PM]

FireWire just cost too much, even if it was superior... Bluetooth doesn't seem to be doing too badly, and UWB will survive if there's demand.

[KarlW @ Nov 3rd 2008 11:28PM]

Why would Intel want WUSB to fail?

See: http://www.intel.com/technology/comms/wusb/index.htm

"Intel leads the way in providing a version of USB, called Wireless USB that strives to eliminate wire clutter and provide the convenience of high speed wireless technology for consumers"

"Consumers have indicated a strong preference for wireless technology: Manufacturers of personal computer, consumer electronic, and mobile devices should plan now to add Wireless USB support to their product roadmaps."

Intel is a founding member of the Wireless USB Promoter Group, and make the 3840 WUSB chip, which has been included in a Dell notebook.

Also, you clearly don't understand what UWB is. It's not a technology that competes with WUSB. UWB is a signalling technology upon which WUSB (as well as other technologies) is built. Intel should probably be taking a more aggressive stance with WUSB (such as making it a part of the next laptop platform), but they surely can't be accused of trying to kill it or anybody supporting it.

[KarlW @ Nov 3rd 2008 11:41PM]

Sorry, that should be Intel 3480 Wireless USB chip. It was shown at CES last January, communicating with a RTU7105 device from Ralink.

In fact, the press release talks of both companies delivering single-chip, worldwide compatible devices (model numbers as above). It appears that WiQuest just couldn't keep up.

If your argument is that Intel is shutting WiQuest out of the WUSB game, then I would argue that there isn't any WUSB game. Adoption is poor, and Intel has invested enough in the technology to want to see it succeed. If your argument is that Intel is just against WUSB full-stop, I'd argue that they're the leading provider of WUSB solutions, and would be akin to Apple claiming that digital music stores have no future.

[wallace @ Nov 3rd 2008 9:28PM]

WIMAX

[marky-b @ Nov 3rd 2008 10:14PM]

@ wallace

... srsly nothing to do with this technology.

unless sprint (or other wimax provider) decided to use it in it's handsets. but i'm sure i dont have to say how very _very_ unlikely that is.

[Valicore @ Nov 3rd 2008 10:50PM]

LTE! Oh wait, is this not the shout-out-random-4g-technologies forum?

[TavisJohn @ Nov 3rd 2008 9:33PM]

What exactly did this do that could not be done over BlueTooth?

[hexoDAT64 @ Nov 3rd 2008 9:51PM]

Transfer stuff at a decent speed?

[TavisJohn @ Nov 3rd 2008 10:19PM]

Decent speed? Would it not be easier to update BlueTooth to support faster transfers?

I manage to transfer files to my cell over BlueTooth almost as fast as I can over USB (Too my cell).

[TavisJohn @ Nov 3rd 2008 10:19PM]

Decent speed? Would it not be easier to update BlueTooth to support faster transfers?

I manage to transfer files to my cell over BlueTooth almost as fast as I can over USB (Too my cell).

[Plothole @ Nov 5th 2008 6:45AM]

That's basically the plan with the upcoming Bluetooth 3.0. Though for those not in control of that standard, popularizing their own competing one could have proved very lucrative.

[Zinger314 @ Nov 3rd 2008 10:12PM]

"WiQuest" sounds like a bad porno.

[marky-b @ Nov 3rd 2008 10:15PM]

I'm thinking their name is supposed to be pronounced wYquest, not wiiquest, although the latter is much more amusing.

[Valicore @ Nov 3rd 2008 10:44PM]

Ummmmmm, what kind of porn movie would that be exactly? If this "quest" were to take more than about a minute, they're doing SOMETHING illegal.

[Joel Corley @ Dec 5th 2008 12:45AM]

I worked for WiQuest for three years.

WiQuest had a working single-chip solution - it was just about a quarter away from being released. We also had a working native host solution. And we had a BG1+BG3 solution. It was our second generation part, which was scheduled to hit the market first quarter of 2009. We even had design wins at Dell and there were others in the works.

We were down to debugging issues. The drivers were a complete rewrite (mostly done months ago), targeted at the native host (PCI-e) solution instead of the USB-based Wire Adapter solution. Going PCI-e removes a lot of the WUSB protocol overhead for the host card and pushes transfer rates much closer to the theoretical maximum.

WiQuest was also a leader in WUSB performance optimizations and has several patents pending in that area. Sustained throughput rates on some devices was already in excess of 200Mb/s at one meter.

What killed WiQuest more than anything was management's inability to close a forth round of venture capital funding - something the knew they needed to do at least a year ago - in a contracting credit environment. Because of economic FUD, no investor, lender or corporation approached was willing to step up to provide the funding (or buy the company or its assets) necessary to bridge the gap to profitability - projected to be in the second half of 2010.

Of course WiQuest arguably did make other strategic mistakes along the way. These mistakes squandered valuable resources and distracted the company from what was arguably its primary mission. But until October 31st, 2008, WiQuest was selling almost all of the silicon into the WUSB market for two simple reasons:

1) No one had really provided a solution that beat our first generation product's performance hands-down; and,
2) WiQuest provided complete, well thought out, end-to-end solutions that simply worked well with few known defects.

Other companies have been focusing on parts of the problem. WiQuest was trying to tackle it all because we felt it was a necessary requirement to boot-strap this market without being dependent on other manufacturer's ability to perform. I don't think this decision was wrong. Hopefully someone else will see it WiQuest's way and step up to the plate and do us one better. If not, WUSB may be in serious trouble.

Regards,
Joel Corley
Senior Software Architect,
Windows Device Driver Development,
(formerly of) WiQuest Communications, Inc.

[Some Guy @ Nov 6th 2008 12:13PM]

Problem is no one wants it!, unless it becomes a standard medium with devices placed at desktop/laptop level in all devices: ie; USB

Other than that is a optional extra and everyone wants optional extras just no everyone can afford them or be befored to add them at a later date.

If all my hardware had WUSB installed from day one and i take it for granted then this discussion wouldnt be happening, if i have to go out and make it part of my setup while finding devices that support it, well thats why we are having this discussion.

[Joel Corley @ Nov 6th 2008 5:10PM]

You're being completely unrealistic if you believe adoption of a new bus technology can be any where near instantaneous. USB today is ubiquitous; but it took years of development and promotion before it got there - and yes, I'm old enough to remember it! The same can be said of almost every bus and protocol in use today.

The ultimate point of WUSB is a complete wire replacement. Ultimately we hoped to drive down the price to the point you could design it into a laptop or device for little more than the price of a cable and associated connectors. In fact at some point, I would have expected to see WUSB to be sold as IP modules for chip designers to include in new, highly integrated SOC designs just as we see USB and PCI-e bus controllers in today's chips ... where those bus controllers are just a peripheral component to the main function and the actual cost of designing in that bus is relatively insignificant compared to the overall cost of the project.

WUSB and UWB have more or less the same performance as wired USB, when operating in native mode. (As opposed to using the WUSB "Wire Adapter" protocol wrapper, which injects a lot of latency into each transfer.) Sure, the convenience of being wireless was expected to demand a price premium at first, but the key point was simply to be able to walk into a room with a device and just be connected - without any wires.

Having wireless peripherals is a huge advantage for both device and laptop manufacturers - take a look at the Apple Airbook. If you eliminate the need for ANY peripheral connectors, a laptop computer can be incredibly thin. In fact with up-coming OLED display technology and the increasing adoption of integrated solid state storage media, you may begin to see laptop / tablets that are just a few millimeters thick. (Though providing power will be interesting.) Without something like UWB and WUSB, you'll be stuck with transfer rates of no more than 100Mb/s or less using somewhat more complex, though more mature WiFi technologies. UWB and WUSB can double or quadruple those rates and at least in theory, they can do it at a fraction of the power required by WiFi. We know this well works - have any of you seen a Wireless Kensington Dock? Video, audio and mass storage available wirelessly? Just try to get all that over WiFi.

BTW, Today's BlueTooth v2.1 specification has only a bit over 2Mb/s available theoretical. Most people quote it as only 1Mb/s because of protocol overhead. At such a slow data rate, it is completely inappropriate for many of the applications that USB can be used for. However, the proposed BlueTooth 3.0 specification actually piggybacks on the WiMedia UWB specification as a PAL (Protocol Adaptation Layer), just like WUSB. This give BlueTooth 3.0 the potential to be just as fast as WUSB. However, BlueTooth 3.0 requires backwards compatibility by requiring devices to possess radios that can operate in both the older 2.1 channels and over the UWB bands. While this actually simplifies new development work somewhat for BlueTooth members, it does so by requiring a much larger and more complex chipset. How quickly BlueTooth members can drive down the cost of BlueTooth 3.0 is a big open question; but WUSB is/was likely to stay ahead of BlueTooth 3.0 on the price / performance curve for several years to come - so don't expect BlueTooth to just magically replace WUSB any time soon.

Joel Corley
Senior Software Architect,
Windows Device Driver Development,
(formerly of) WiQuest Communications, Inc.