Bluetooth cuts the cord

Applications and products

Bluetooth provides a speedy wireless connection, particularly for connecting to the Internet or to the company LAN via a mobile device. As long as you are within 30 feet of a Bluetooth access point, you can log on with a Web pad, mobile phone, PDA, or notebook computer.

Bluetooth's rated data transmission speed is 1mbps, while data rates (actual throughput) are limited to 720kbps within the 2.4GHz band. In addition, it is affordable; manufacturers estimate that adding Bluetooth as a feature will cost about US$15 per product at first, but that by mid-2001, the necessary chips should cost only about $5.

Bluetooth capabilities are planned for a variety of peripheral devices as well, including printers, digital cameras, and mobile phone headsets. Untethered from the cables and cradles now needed for data synchronisation, the devices will sync data over a Bluetooth connection.

In conference rooms, Pocket PC PowerPoint presentations will be transmitted from PDAs to projection systems. Users will exchange electronic business cards without establishing the line of sight required by infrared, send each other small files, and print documents from the network. Through the closest Bluetooth access point, IT administrators will access the documentation of the products they are servicing.

Products on the way
Today, the number of devices that incorporate the standard is almost negligible. The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) has identified 72 end-user products that are qualified for Bluetooth. Including components, development tools, and software, there are more than 250 certified products--but the Bluetooth SIG includes more than 2,000 companies. It may be slim pickings now, but product availability is expected to soar. The market research firm Cahners In-Stat forecasts that shipments of Bluetooth-enabled equipment will reach 955 million units in 2005, a five-year compound annual growth rate of 360 percent.

The proliferation of these devices will be a major security concern in the enterprise. While there is little doubt that these wireless devices could open serious security holes, Bluetooth has built-in encryption and authentication, which makes it quite secure. The standard's frequency-hopping scheme, which makes 1,600 hops per second, adds to its safety. For their part, vendors are creating enterprise software with heightened security that incorporates Bluetooth and other wireless standards. ReefEdge's Mobile Domain, for example, uses layer three technology to secure connections from a Bluetooth-enabled device to a corporate network.

Contents

1.  Intro      2.  Applications and products      3.  Competing wireless standards      4.  The interoperability question

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