Tuesday, November 4th 2008
Wireless USB Standard Dies
WiQuest Communications Inc. today went bankrupt, and thus unofficially announced that the work on the Wireless USB standard will stop permanently. The Allen, Texas, company employed about 120 people focused on the wireless USB protocol. WiQuest was shipping a two-chip wireless USB solution adopted as an optional add-on to notebooks from Dell, Lenovo and Toshiba as well as consumer devices such as hubs from Belkin, D-Link and others. According to the source of this story, WiQuest couldn't resolve the technical difficulties in bringing the wireless technology to the market. The whole wireless USB solution requires two chips instead of a single one to work, also the first generation wireless USB devices offered very limited transfer speeds. Another problem that was present during all the time were the power requirements set by the OEM adopters. After the little success of the first generation wireless USB standard, WiQuest was sampling a single chip device announced back in August, but this one won't make it to production now.
Source:
EETimes.com
We've been looking for a variety of alternatives for awhile now including new investors and acquisitions, but none looked like positive alternatives to our investors so we decided to shut the doors today,said Todd A. Brown, vice president of worldwide sales at the company.
9 Comments on Wireless USB Standard Dies
So, sorry to see you go, but, IMO, you never had a product.
Your link to companies doesn't work though, wifi in't exactly the greatest thing for an office. Performance is crap, it's unreliable, not secure, etc. Of course, if the technology improves to be on par with wired networks on those points, which no doubt happens eventually, it's a great thing.
Corporate wifi is fine for printers, PDAs, phones, etc. I do agree it is hopeless for data and internet networking. And security is an issue, agreed.
But really, what applications were there (sensible ones) for wireless USB that arent already covered by blutooth or arent better covered by wifi?
What these guys were doing was replacing the USB wire to your mouse, speakers, or keyboard by going "wireless USB". The only problem is that these devices need POWER. LOL. So you still need a cable. :nutkick: