We had to do a doubletake on news from Brighton-based Amplicon that it is offering a wireless USB2 extender. It sounded at first sight as if the company was offering one of the first Wireless USB devices.

But note that Amplicon’s product does not capitalise the word wireless. Wireless (cap W) USB uses ultrawideband (UWB) radio to replace the usual USB cable and it is rated at 480Mbits/sec over two metres, though real data rates will be half that. Transfer rates drop off rapidly with distance and the maximum range is 10 meters. It is thus suitable for links across a room rather than a building.

Wireless (cap W) USB products should hit the shelves later this year after the technology is formally endorsed by parliament. The first available will be USB2 hubs, with a plug-in adapter for the host PC, and will allow links to up to four devices.

Amplicon’s WiRanger also consists of a host adapter and four-port hub but it uses Wifi 11g instead of UWB for the wireless link. This means it is rated at 55Mbit/sec, though you will be unlikely to get that at the claimed maximum range of 30 metres.

It costs £249.99, which is a lot by consumer Wifi standards. But the maximum length of a USB cable is five meters, so if you want to extend a fixed link further you would have to buy at least one hub or repeater. And that’s without factoring in the cost of routing cables across a building.