New technology will make wireless I/O commonplace in harsh industrial environments.

Wireless radio technology as fixed frequency radio in our homes, cars, and factories is common.

Operation requires a government license that theoretically prevents other broadcast signals inside the "bandwidth" and territory covered by that license.

This high power output allows transmission across great distances and blasting through obstacles. The downside is an almost immediate drop off in performance if interference (manmade or environmental) moves into the allocated bandwidth. Limited available frequencies also means users, particularly in urban areas, must often wait years for a license. To allow greater access and utilize new radio technologies dealing with interference, in 1987 the FCC allocated Industrial, Scientific, and Medical (ISM) spread spectrum bands.

Radio technology has worked in the telemetry world for years instead of costly long run cable. Licensed radios and even spread spectrum radios are commonplace in the wide-open spaces of the oil fields and outlying municipal water systems around North America. Here, reliability depends on the FCC maintaining the end user's exclusive rights to that portion of the bandwidth. One claims reliability, or in the case of spread spectrum radios, often maintains reliability simply because there aren't other radios competing for the bandwidth in the same area.