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Will 802.11 Kill Bluetooth?

Posted by Hemos on from the battle-of-the-wireless dept.

joshwa writes "NYTimes (free reg. required) has an article about the struggles of the Bluetooth folks to fine-tune their technology and get the costs down far enough. The most interesting part is that analysts seem to think that 802.11's (what is this new 'Wi-Fi' moniker?) growing popularity will overshadow Bluetooth's entrance into the marketplace, and will beat Bluetooth into the small devices market. Can 802.11 actually work in a Palm or a cell phone?" The article, IMHO, misses the difference in uses - if you've got a small device that you want to conserve power on, and only communicate small distances, Bluetooth's ideal. If you've got a lot of power, a la a notebook computer, and want to communicate 150 ft., then 802.11 is what you want. Imagine that: Different uses! Different standards! Amazing!

2 of 228 comments (clear)

  1. Sure it will by baptiste · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Bluetooth doesn't stand a chance. Why? Because it interferes with 802.11 802.11 throughput drops like a stone when a Bluetooth piconet is active. Many corporations have banned Bluetooth devices (before they were even available) to avoid this.

    There are ways around it - by having APs that can handle both protocols and thus can deal with both protocols being active at once. But given teh amount of 802.11 equipment out there already, I expect many places will resist Bluetooth devices since they don't want to have to buy new APs. Thus Bluetooth will have a tough time gaining ground.

    I think its a neat idea, but heck - USB was supposed to reduce the rats nest around my PC too and hasn't so far - I'm still waiting for monitors with USB ports that your keyboard and mouse connect to - I knwo they exist, but its not widely done (nor are keyboards and mice over USB)

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  2. Misunderstood Technologies 802.11b and Bluetooth by Gedvondur · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Bluetooth is an interesting technology. When you start looking into it, the possibilities are enormous. A lot of people were bitten by the Bluetooth bug, and it's understandable why. It would be VERY cool if it worked out.

    One of the huge problems is that people keep comparing 802.11b (WI-FI) to Bluetooth.

    They are NOT the same thing. Go read the Bluetooth spec. Bluetooth is a cable replacement technology that can, if necessary, do some ad-hoc networking. 802.11b is wireless Ethernet. Not the same thing, not intended to do the same thing.

    There have been a couple of companies that have been deliberately muddying the waters about this. Bluetooth is NOT an acceptable replacement or even a good substitute for 802.11b. Bluetooth is limited to 1megabit per second, which means throughput of about 650k to 800k real, depending on conditions. 802.11b is 11megabits max, and about 5megabits in the real world. (Shared bandwidth, retransmissions, and Ethernet overhead)

    Bluetooth is staggeringly bad at providing traditional Ethernet services, just as 802.11b is awful as a cable replacement technology. 802.11b has too much power usage, and dependency on Ethernet for cable replacement. It was NOT designed to replace the cable going from your cell phone to your headset. Bluetooth was. It was just overly hyped and generally misunderstood. Too bad, it could have been cool.

    Gedvondur