( Mobile ) - I dislike wires as much as the other guy, which is why I'm so interested in the development of wireless USB. There are several things that are holding the standard back, but the biggest hurdle appears to be data transfer rates. What's the point of going wireless if the transfer is mind-numbingly slow?
According to some guys at Intel, the company is working on a wireless USB 1.1 standard that will push the transfer rate to a very formidable 1Gbps. This extra expedient transfer speed will then be able to fully support high resolution webcams, high capacity flash drives, and other USB peripherals. Intel says that this wireless USB 1.1 standard will operate in the 6GHz range, rather than the 3-4GHz currently being used by wireless USB.
Masami Katagiri of NEC scoffs at Intel's claims, however, saying that wireless USB is far from being able to achieve 1Gbps. Instead, he says that it's only doing 40Mbps right now and it would need to push at least 500Mbps to gain 1.1 approval.