I, Cringely writes:
A few weeks ago, I wrote about the emerging 802.15 networking standard for wirelessly connecting home entertainment devices like televisions, DVDs, and personal computers. After that column appeared I heard from a number of readers who couldn't imagine why I was excited about 802.15 when 802.11g was already available and would work over a much greater distance. Was I just stupid or what? Then not long ago I had lunch with a guy named Sriram who runs Intel Capital and is funneling hundreds of millions of Intelbucks into various wireless networking schemes that include WiFi hotspots and 802.15 devices. Sriram wasn't a partisan of 802.11g or 802.15, but of ALL wireless networking schemes at the expense of wired approaches. In Sriram's mind, the future of networking is wireless, and it would be stupid to put money in anything else.
These are both examples of settling for the first viable answer, and deciding that it makes no sense to look further. Both positions are misguided. Take 802.11g versus 802.15. Certainly, with 54 megabits-per-second to work with, 802.11g has the bandwidth to carry just about any signal all the way to HDTV's 20 megabits-per-second. Why do we need 802.15 at all? This answer comes down to Quality of Service (QoS), interference and congestion. With 802.11 wireless, all its incarnations offer no true Quality of Service. There is no guarantee that my HDTV signal will get preferential treatment over Grandad's porno downloads.
News source: I, Cringely
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