What are Bluetooth and 802.11b?

What is Bluetooth?

Bluetooth is a cable replacement technology that allows devices to communicate with one another wirelessly.

The technology was developed by Ericsson in 1994 and version 1.0 released in 1999. The name Bluetooth comes from King Harald I of Denmark who apparently loved blueberries which led to his blue-stained teeth and hence his nickname.

Bluetooth has been incorporated primarily into mobile phone handsets and PDAs and allows these devices to communicate with other Bluetooth-enabled devices such as laptops, PCs and printers.

While Bluetooth has not taken off as quickly as its promoters had hoped for, more and more new products that include the wireless technology have recently been introduced to the market.

Until recently, the Bluetooth and 802.11b technologies could not be used together in the same product due to interference caused by the two operating on the same frequency of 2.4Ghz. Software was recently developed to correct this issue and now hardware manufacturers are introducing products with both technologies incorporated.

How can Bluetooth be used to access the internet?

Since a Bluetooth-enabled mobile phone can communicate wirelessly with a laptop a user can use the phone as a modem to access his/her ISP. Unfortunately, the speed at which data is transferred is much lower than 802.11b technology and therefore Bluetooth isn’t the best way to wirelessly access the internet with a laptop.

For more information on what Bluetooth can do, visit the Using Bluetooth Technology page on Bluetooth's official website.

What is 802.11b?

802.11b (also known as "Wi-Fi") is a wireless internet standard that provides Ethernet access with the ability to transfer large amounts of data at high-speeds. Wi-Fi is the technology that corporations use for their wireless LANs (WLANs) and requires that a user be within a 100-300 foot range of a "hot spot" or networking node in order to connect to the network.

802.11b has been adopted by a number of consumers interested in accessing the internet on their laptops remotely from a variety of hot spots. In some cities such as San Francisco, Wi-Fi followers have taken up the practice of marking doors and walls where "hot spots" are located so that other users may log on to publicly available (or not) networks in multiple locations across town.

Consumers are also jumping on the Wi-Fi bandwagon to set-up wireless networks at home so that they can surf the internet and check email in the garden, in front of the T.V., etc.

What are some other differences between Bluetooth and Wi-Fi wireless technologies?

The table below details several specific differences between the two technologies.

Criteria	Bluetooth	802.11b
Function	Cable replacement technology which connects business tools to one another (e.g. printer, PCs, notebooks, PDAs	Method of connecting to business systems such as LANs, Intranet and Internet
Range	30 feet	100-300 feet
Data Transfer Speed	400-800 kbps	11 mbps
Market Penetration	Slow adoption rate by hardware manufacturers due to interoperability and usability issues.	Growing use in the U.S. Europe just beginning to adopt in 2002.
PC Card Price	~$130	$50-70

Infrastructure

Home