A lack of interoperability between wireless communications equipment from different vendors is a "significant challenge" to the growth of wireless sensors and transmitters in industry. This warning comes in the latest survey of this growing market - the third to appear in a matter of months.

The new report, from Frost & Sullivan, predicts that the global market for wireless technologies will swell from $160m last year, to $1.85bn by 2012.

But a lack of openness could hinder growth, it cautions. "Wireless sensors and sensor networking technologies are largely proprietary and each market participant has his own set of implementations with little interfacing capabilities with those of other manufacturers or OEMs," explains F&S research analyst, V Sankaranarayanan. "Hence, if a customer was to buy a solution from one service provider, migrating to another would mean reworking the entire solution, thereby incurring significant costs."

However, he sees the emergence of standards such as IEEE 802.15.4 and Zigbee as indicating a move towards a standards-based environment.