Fieldbus Foundation Speaks Out on Wireless WAR

April 30, 2008
I received this letter from Rich Timoney, President and CEO of the Fieldbus Foundation. It was sent to all the voting members of ISA100. It speaks for itself.

Subject: Wireless Standardization Activities

I am writing to you today to make you awar...

I received this letter from Rich Timoney, President and CEO of the Fieldbus Foundation. It was sent to all the voting members of ISA100. It speaks for itself.

Subject: Wireless Standardization Activities

I am writing to you today to make you aware of recent developments in the standardization of wireless technology that I believe are positive for our industry. On April 3, 2008, at a meeting of the ISA 100 Committee in ChongQing, China, end users and suppliers joined forces to initiate a letter ballot to create a WirelessHART™ Subcommittee within the existing ISA 100 structure. The Scope and Purpose of this subcommittee is to evlauate the incorporation of WirelessHART technology within the ISA 100 family of standards. The Fieldbus Foundation supports this initiative of creating this new subcommittee and believes it is in the best interests of our served markets.

As you may recall, last September, the Fieldbus Foundation, HART Communication Foundation and Profibus Nutzerorganisation e.V. (PNO) announced the creation of a Wireless Cooperation Team. The three organizations believe that it is in the best interests of our membership and the end user community we serve to collaborate to the most logical extent possible and to bring about a wireless solution of common origin. To say this another way, through collaboration to accelerate the introduction and adoption of wireless technolgy within our industry by mimizing the confusion and competitive marketing that will surely arise from multiple standards and to provide an easy path forward for the implementation and adooption of wireless technology.

The initiative referenced above that was brought forward in April, provides the ISA the opportunity to bring about a similar cooperative action as the three leading intelligent device protocols have aleady begun.  I urge ISA 100 members to vote positively in support of this initiative and to establish the WirelessHART subcommittee and include WirelessHART in their planned family of Standards.

The first charter of the Wireless Cooperation Team is the specification for a common interface to a wireless gateway. The wireless field protocol will be WirelessHART with the the output supporting Foundation™ fieldbus technology or Profibus communication tecnologies.

Certainly, we all share the same goals, the devlopment and implementation of standards that beneift the vast majority of supliers and ens users with the automation industries. Please consider our request carefully and vote positively for this worthwhile intitiative.

Sincerely

Richard J. Timoney

President & CEO