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Bluetooth Plans to Triple Bandwidth
stallard writes "Yahoo! news reports that "The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) Monday is releasing a three-year road map for Bluetooth short-range wireless technology that includes a tripling of bandwidth and the ability to multicast signals to seven other users.""
Hardly short range. You can increase Bluetooth's range to a full mile, with a simple, inexpensive modification.
Those peski radioes are power hungry ...
I think the point of Bluetooth is that you don't see the wires. ;)
Am I the first to say I'm sick of the Bluetooth Special Interest Group and all its porkbarrel politics?
Actually, bluetooth's physical bandwidth is only 721kb. It's amazing what google will tell you if you ask it.
http://www.mobileinfo.com/Bluetooth/FAQ.htm#t5
http://arstechnica.com/news/posts/1086977875.html
There should be a -1 (Don't know jack shit) mod option. On the other hand, I'm glad you've mastered your buzzwords.
And now for something completely different...a man with three buttocks.
The Commodore SIG announced plans to make a future announcement of an impending design contest to map the creation of the Commodore 192, which would have triple the capacity of its Commodore 64.
Commodore SIG said there were thousands of programs available for the C-64 that would run unchanged or with a simple recompile on the new machine. C-SIG predicted the machine would easily outperform designs from competitors Heath and Timex.
sigs, as if you care.
... and cellphone seem to be doing the job pretty well already with only 10Mbps. At what point do the bandwidth capabilities of an turbo-charged Bluetooth become redundant with WiFi enabled with ZeroConf networking?
Whoopedy freakin' dooo...
I don't need more bandwidth from my phone to my PDA/laptop, I need more bandwidth from my phone to the tower. When GPRS picks up the snail's pace a bit then maybe we can focus on speeding up Bluetooth.
Or am I the only one who only uses BT for phone-> device communication?
Let's get one thing perfectly clear, I did not vote for George W Bush, and I do not endorse what he does or says.
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Talk about aiming low: "signals to seven other users". Of course, as soon was there is a hardcoded limit people will want to exceed it.
I suspect that, given the range for high data rates is relatively low, unless your friends are the types who like cramming into phone boxes or VW beetles, it's probably not going to be a big issue.
When they say the UWB is 5 years out, I call that low level FUD. It's very nearly ready for prime time. Certainly for applications like PAN and such. This is going to compete directly with Bluetooth. The bigger and juicier UWB apps like thru-wall imaging radars are still a few years off. Personally I'm looking forward to UWB. If it all goes to plan my next DVD player will connect to my new TV wirelessly eliminating the need for all household cables. Except extention cords. But given time, we'll get rid of those too. Incidentally the holdup on many UWB apps is the integrated antenna. Its proving very hard to build small antennas with the bandwidth required.
From the article:
The three-year road map will help show that Bluetooth has staying power, Foley said.
Under the road map, the SIG plans to complete the Bluetooth Version 2.0+EDR (Enhanced Data Rate) specification by the end of this year, increasing the data rate to 3Mbit/sec., up from 1Mbit/sec. in the current Version 1.2, Foley said. Products are expected to appear with the EDR as early as June 2005, he said. The newer-version products will also be backward-compatible with older versions.
So it will go from 1 Mbit/sec. to 3Mbit/sec which isn't too bad considering its uses. I mean, really, how much bandwidth does your keyboard and mouse need? Or your cell phone earpiece? I don't think anyone needs to show that Bluetooth has "staying power." It targets a particular market and particular applications and does its job very well. You don't need 1Gbit/sec of bandwidth (which you'll get with UWB) to use your keyboard, mouse, or earpiece.
I think the most interesting thing is the multicasting to seven other devices. That should allow a lot of fun and interesting applications.
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Does that mean trippling of the range??? I'd sure appreciate a fetaure like that... Here're some bluejacking links. Also, great general bluetooth info on the WebLogsInc.
This may have something to do with current bluetooth capabilities. Bluetooth based networks currently support piconets with a master and seven slaves. Presume they simply extended this to support multicasting
Seven is the maximum number of Bluetooth devices in a "piconet", so that's where the limit comes from. Multicasting in this context means being able to transmit some data to all the other devices in the piconet ON THE RADIO INTERFACE.
Simple, but not necessarily practical (or even truthful, not sure) example: You have seven devices connected to a bluetooth basestation using BNEP (Bluetooth Ethernet Emulation). The BS is connected to Internet with some wire. Somebody from "outside world" decides to ping somebody in the Piconet.
The nearest router sends a broadcast ARP request asking who has IP Address x.x.x.x. Since there is no Bluetooth multicast at the moment, the basestation has to replicate the ARP request for each and every one of the devices. With multicast, it could just send the request once and everyone would receive it (with the right one replying).
In wireless LAN (802.11) you can broad- and multicast on the link layer just like in traditional wired net; Now they are just adding this functionality to BT.
Oh, and the limit of seven can be extended; A device can belong to multiple piconets.
Currently Bluetooth is about 721 kbits. EDR will extend it to 2.1Mbits.
tripling the bandwidth isn't really a good solution either if you ask me. while 30mbps is faster, it's not nearly enough to over take the up and coming wireless usb or wireless firewire. both of which i believe are going to be UWB based (i.e. 400mbps).
Tripling the bandwidth would allow lossless transmission to stereo headphones, where currently it's (slightly) compressed. It's a relatively small change in spec too - mostly just a change to the modulation scheme.
UWB will likely have a hard time passing regulations (except in the US), because it's a deliberate radiator over a large chunk of everyone else's spectrum. It's also dubious whether it's actually a low power solution, or better than OFDM (802.11g and friends) when power isn't an issue. It also doesn't exist in a useful commercial form, and probably (in my opinion) never will. Or at least, never should.
one of the interesting design decisions with bluetooth is that it operates at the exact same hz as a cell phone signal. hence the convergence with cell phones and bluetooth, as it was obviously designed with this purpose in mind.
No, it operates at 2.4GHz, like most other consumer digital wireless stuff.
maybe we'll get lucky and cell phones will have 1gb+ memory with built in mp3 player support one day, so i won't have to carry so many different damn devices:P
Because Bluetooth was designed with low power consumption firmly in mind, it's ideal for MP3 players. The transceivers these days are incredibly small. I'm sure you'll see it common place soon.
Has anybody here tried to develop software to run bluetooth hardware? It's enough to make you cry! Has the SIG done anything to try and make developing applications easier?
Hmm.... I see our wireless theater coming one step closer.
;-)
3 times the bandwidth => 3+ stereo signals
I say 3+ because very few people need to broadcast thier music at a full 721kbs.
multicasting => music from seven points in your house or seven speaker systems throughout it.
The makings for a wireless rave
If the 7-peer multicast limit comes from connecting to other Bluetooth phones as the slaves in a BT piconet, can they each connect to 7 other devices in their own piconets? A P2P (Piconet to Piconet) daisy chain? And will those P2P internets exclude the "peripheral" devices, like headphones and storage, that currently fill the piconets?
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make install -not war
But how are you going to get 7 million people in a volume of 30 feet around you?
Seven is not too bad considering the purpose of bluetooth - short range cheap (as in low energy and cheap chipsetets) device to device communications.
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I've found that the speed of Bluetooth varies greatly by device.
When I transfer a file from my PowerBook to my SonyEricsson T86mc phone, it only goes about 5k/sec.
When I transfer a file from my PowerBook to my Sony UX-50 (Palm Pilot-type thingy), I get 35-40k/sec.
I don't know if this is a software issue, or just that the processor in the device has a hard time keeping up, or what.
For those of us who live in small spaces, and travel a lot, Bluetooth is a Godsend. I have nine Bluetooth devices, and can't imagine going back to wires.
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...but I hope they rename the old version to sound faster than the new version so people who have 1st-gen BT gear don't feel sad. Just like DVDs--widescreen, fullscreen... wow, they both sound great!
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Great, looks like we can now have multiway "Toothing", think of how many more interesting diseases I'll be able to pick up! Sexual deviancy has never been so easy. ;-)
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Biting into the new sex text craze
People that believe in their opinions don't post AC.
I am glad to see Bluetooth development continues. It seems like a technology that was released just a little before its time.
I have written before on my desire to see a true PAN (Personal Area Network), and there does seem to be some work being done on this idea.
Instead of going to all-in-one units (the PDA/phone/camera/game machine Slashdot users like to rant against), why not have individual pieces that work together seamlessly?
Imagine a phone being broken into three pieces - a headset (similar to the Bluetooth ones you are seeing now), the actual phone receiver (for interacting with your provider) that is nothing more than a small matchbook sized piece without any UI, and then a full PDA to contain addresses and phone numbers. Want to call someone? Grab your PDA and hit a phone number. it uses the PAN to tell the phone what to dial, which then uses the PAN to interact with the headset.
Do not want to carry the PDA that day? Fine, leave it at home. It is always synced with the phone device, which can be controlled using your voice (voice dialing).
Taking pictures? Listening to music? Why should my digital camera be limited to the 128-512 meg flash card I put into it? I have my iPod/MP3 player with hard drive on me! The camera could use the PAN to save images to the hard drive on the MP3 player. You could even separate the MP3 player from the hard drive, and use the PAN to stream from hard drive to a set of PAN-enabled headphones (or to an MP3 control device hooked up to the headphones).
So you put pictures you took with your digital camera onto the hard drive. Want to view them? Take out your PDA with its nice screen and view them on that via the PAN.
Want to get online? Pull out your PDA (or laptop) and have it interact seamlessly with your phone device to get online.
Walk up to a computer? Have it PAN-enabled so it detects who you are before you sit down (or not, depending on how security-minded you are).
The advantage of Bluetooth over 802.11[x] is the power constraints. Bluetooth and similar technologies are designed with battery life in mind. I do not want to have to charge every PAN device I have every night to make sure I do not run out of battery just walking around.
The technology to do all of this currently exists. I think this is the next step Bluetooth (or a Bluetooth replacement) needs to take.
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I hate to be picky, but I think everybody is using the word bandwidth to mean data rate.
Bandwidth has units of Hz and data rate has units of bits/sec. True that increasing the bandwidth of a signal can increase the data rate, but the reverse need no be the case.
In fact if you read the article they tell us that the increased data rate will be accomplished through changes in the data modulation (most likely by moving from binary phase shift keying, to quadrature phase shift keying, or higher).
DR. Null
Imagine a phone being broken into three pieces - a headset (similar to the Bluetooth ones you are seeing now), the actual phone receiver (for interacting with your provider) that is nothing more than a small matchbook sized piece without any UI, and then a full PDA to contain addresses and phone numbers. Want to call someone? Grab your PDA and hit a phone number. it uses the PAN to tell the phone what to dial, which then uses the PAN to interact with the headset.
Why imagine? This is exactly what I do every day. I have a Nokia 6310i, an Palm Tungsten T3 and a bluetooth headset. Furthermore my Thinkpad T30 also has bluetooth built in. Bluetooth is a mandatory feature for me now. Once you start using it, you'll wonder how you did without. It makes it vastly easier for electronic devices to communicate.
My phone is essentially a portable wireless base station in addition to being a phone. I can check email from either my PDA or laptop and connect through the phone without ever taking it out of my pocket or bag. If I need to sync my pda, no cables are necessary. I can touch dial numbers on my phone directly from my PDA address book. I just tap the number and it dials. I've surfed the web (albiet slowly) from my laptop while riding in a car on the highway and my phone was in the truck. Effectively my PDA and cell phone are a single device but I only have to carry the bits I'm actually going to use.
I see people compare bluetooth to 802.11X all the time but those folks miss the point. It's not about connecting to the internet. It's a replacement for almost any data-carrying wire. Bluetooth replaces my PDA sync cable, phone sync cable, mouse and keyboard USB cables, phone ear bud cable, and if needed my ethernet cable. Furthermore it could replace printer cables, IR ports, serial cables and several others. Most importantly I can take it anywhere.
WiFi is almost non-portable only replaces the ethernet cable because that is all it is designed to do. (and it does a good job of it, I'm not bashing WiFi) Bluetooth isn't optimized for what WiFi does so it's slower but also consumes less power and has other uses WiFi does not. If you are comparing WiFi to Bluetooth, you don't understand Bluetooth. Not everyone needs one or the other, but the comparison between them is silly. It's very much like comparing Firewire cables to Ethernet cables and arguing that one is better than the other. The argument just doesn't make sense.
Nokia seems to be unable to implement bluetooth correctly
I use a Nokia 6310i and bluetooth does work great. However I had to get a firmware update on my phone. If you have a 6310i, you need firmware revision 5.50. Other Nokia phones may have similar issues which could be the problem you are facing. If it is under warranty, you can get the upgrade done for free. Don't ask Nokia tech support, they're generally clueless with regard to Bluetooth and will tell you it's your adapter's fault. You might have to mail it in to get flashed depending on your location. I sent mine to Florida.
The bigger problem IMO with Nokia is their software on my PC which, to be blunt, sucks. It's nowhere near seamless to connect, very poorly designed, and is under some bizarre illusion that everyone uses Outlook in recent versions. Furthermore they have different versions for each phone which is completely not necessary.