You've probably heard about the ongoing battle over the proposed 802.15.3a ultra-wideband (UWB) standard between Motorola and, so it seems, everyone else, in the form of the Multiband OFDM Alliance. I've spent time with both sides, and I've come to the common analyst-sensitive-to-politics conclusion that both sides make a good point.

Both proposals are impressive, both camps have technical credibility, both are peeved at one another and both, of course, claim technical superiority. And both would have us believe that all will be right in the universe if we all just get along. Ah, if it were only that easy — but it never is.

Having a single physical layer in any networking standard would be like having all human beings speak the same language: It's desirable, but it's not going to happen. In case the warring camps haven't noticed, many successful standards have multiple PHYs. The IEEE 802.3 group has seen the development of new PHYs throughout its entire history. And most people are surprised to learn that 802.11 has eight PHYs at the moment: the original DS and FH, IR (never implemented, as far as I know), .11b (CCK), .11a (OFDM) and three .11g modes (OFDM plus two optional modes I think everyone has forgotten by now). Add .11n, and that makes nine. And 802.11 is without question a highly successful standard that has served as the backbone of a vibrant, growing, exciting industry with hundreds of companies and products.

So, please, let's stop the nonsense about needing just one standard. Sure, it would be great. So would lower taxes and getting a live person when one calls corporate America to inquire as to why a given product doesn't seem to work as advertised.

We should all speak the same language, but we don't — and yet things seem mostly to work out, most of the time. That's as good as it gets, I'm afraid.

By the way, UWB is supposed to be good at operating under conditions of significant interference, including that from other UWB sources. In operation, signal degradation might not even be noticeable, and I think multimode implementations might even be the norm for a while.

Every other class of wireless system — LAN, MAN and WAN — is doing just fine, despite having multiple PHYs.

It's time for the market to decide. And what's so bad about that?

Craig J. Mathias is principal of Farpoint Group (Ashland, Mass.).