Forget WiFi mesh networks: Zigbee rules, says In-Stat

Stuart Corner
Tuesday, 07 November 2006 04:29

Business IT - Technology

According to market research company, In-Stat, the ZigBee standard will become the dominant wireless mesh networking technology because of "the clarity of the ZigBee standard, the organisational strength of the ZigBee Alliance and the involvement of several of the world's largest semiconductor companies."

To date hundreds of metropolitan area and campus wide wireless mesh networks have been built based on the IEEE 802.11 WiFi standard with proprietary meshing overlay technologies from companies such as Nortel, Tropos Networks, Strix Systems and others, whereas the dominant application for ZigBee is for short range control and monitoring of building control systems.

ZigBee is a networking layer that is built on top of the IEEE 802.15.4 standard. "The IEEE 802.15.4 Working Group was designed to create unified standards for short-range, self-configuring mesh networks," In-Stat says. "The addition of ZigBee to 802.15.4 gives an OEM or other end-user the assurance of multiple sources of silicon.

In 2006, In-Stat estimates between 4.5 million and 10.5 million ZigBee RF components will be sold and that commercial building control is, and will continue to be, the largest 802.15.4/ZigBee application. It says that North America accounts for 53 percent of the global market.

In-Stat explores its findings in a new publication, "Building Up ZigBee and 802.15.4 Chipsets and Applications" which was not available to iTWire and In-Stat's press release announcing this conclusion did not discuss the fact that ZigBee applications are predominantly short range, in building rather than wide area outdoor.

According to the website of the ZigBee Alliance, the range of ZigBee is 0-100+ metres. However in a comparison of ZigBee with WiFi and other wireless technologies  it suggests that the range of WiFi is even more limited: 1-100 metres. Nor does In-Stat explain how it reaches its conclusion in light of ZigBee's much more limited bandwidth than WiFi: a maximum off 250bkps, according to the ZigBee Alliance, as against 10Mbps and above for WiFi.

By the ZigBee Alliance's own admission ZigBee is primarily a remote monitoring technology. In its FAQs under "Why do we need ZigBee?" it says: "ZigBee is the only wireless standards-based technology that: addresses the unique needs of remote monitoring & control, and sensory network applications; enables broad-based deployment of wireless networks with low cost, low power solutions; provides the ability to run for years on inexpensive primary batteries for a typical monitoring application."