Bluetooth

2 Pages 549 Words

As Bluetooth and 802.11 emerged over the past several years, many people thought that Bluetooth would compete heavily with 802.11. The introduction of Bluetooth products has been much slower than 802.11 products.
The introduction of Bluetooth in May of 1998 was the result of several companies, such as Ericsson, IBM, Intel, Nokia, and Toshiba, working together to create a solution to provide wireless access to computing devices. The result is considered ideal for small devices, short range, and low power radio links. This makes Bluetooth a good fit for connecting PCs and laptop computers, phones, printers, PDA’s, and cameras.
IEEE has made Bluetooth the basis for the 802.15 standard for wireless personal area networks. Bluetooth operates in the 2.4GHz band, using frequency hopping spread spectrum technology. It constantly hops over the entire spectrum at a rate of about 1,600 hops per second. Low power Bluetooth devices have a range of about 30 feet. Higher powered Bluetooth devices, however, can reach distances of around 300 feet, but this is fairly rare. One major downfall of Bluetooth is its relatively slow operation. Data rates are only a couple of megabits-per-second (Mbps), well below that of 802.11a and 802.11b.
The 802.11 standard was completed in June of 1997 and is the basis of the Wi-Fi standard. Since then there have been some additions to the standard, namely 802.11a and 802.11b. Right now 802.11b is the most popular version, operating in the 2.4GHz spectrum with maximum data rates of 11Mbps and a range of about 300 feet. 802.11a is much faster than 802.11b at 54Mbps but has somewhat less range because of operation in the higher frequency 5GHz band.
But there is significant competition for the market between 802.11 and Bluetooth, because higher powered Bluetooth components are capable of achieving 802.11 ranges. The current Bluetooth products, however, are mostly low power and focus on wireless functions. In ad...