News: This Little Standard Went to Market; This Little Standard Blew Up

From ranges of 3 meters to 30 kilometers, broadband wireless technology is poised on the brink of all but eliminating the cords binding millions of devices and the Internet. However, the high economic stakes inherent in creating and dominating any given niche of the wireless network are also creating challenges for standards bodies, notably the IEEE 802 group, which oversees protocol development for local and metropolitan area networks. Two of the IEEE 802 groups in particular - the 802.15.3a task group, overseeing development of a wireless personal area network technology, and the 802.20 working group, overseeing development of mobile broadband wireless access-have been substantially bedeviled in recent months by infighting that has delayed research and product development in their respective sectors. The 802.15.3a group, which was exploring a standard for wireless universal serial bus (USB) technology, shut itself down in January 2006, after three years of wrangling over two distinctly different approaches to creating wireless connections between PCs, peripherals, and home entertainment equipment. In June, the IEEE standards board suspended the 802.20 group\´s activities (pdf), after an internal investigation revealed "a lack of transparency, possible `dominance,\´ and other irregularities in the working group."