SSK Telecom Plans Ultra Wideband (UWB) Handsets for PANs

SK Telecom, the largest mobile phone and broadband operator in Korea, is working with Staccato Communications on Ultra Wideband (UWB) wireless personal area network (WPAN) mobile phone services.



SK Telecom selected Staccato's UWB silicon for use in mobile handsets that will use UWB for content delivery from access points, connecting mobile phones to larger displays (PC, TV, Auto), connecting mobile phones to the PC ecosystem, and sharing profiles and content from one user to another through personal area social networking (PASN). UWB operates at up to 480 Mbps.



Services developed and launched by SK Telecom and Staccato will be standardized and offered worldwide to other operators after initial launch in Korea.



Staccato said that it is working with SK Telecom on applications using several protocols. The Staccato's "PIK" MAC (Medium Access Control) technology is a Protocol Independent Kernel, based on a custom implementation of hardware acceleration and ARM9 software control. This patent-pending technology enables the simultaneous operation of Certified Wireless USB, WiNet, Bluetooth 3.0 and other potential protocols at speeds up to 480Mbps. Products will initially launch with WiMedia radios using spectrum below 6GHz (band group 1, band 3) and add above-6GHz operation when the WiMedia Alliance completes the certification process for these bands.



For the first phase, a Korean-based, leading manufacturer of handsets worldwide will be the handset developer for the new WiMedia UWB handsets.

http://www.staccatocommunications.comhttp://www.sktelecom.com/