Wireless • Bluetooth • GPRS • Broadband, ISDN & Dial-Up • VPN

Bluetooth vs Wireless Local Area Network (Wi-Fi)

 

There is a debate going on regarding the merits of two technologies, rather three technologies - Wireless LANs, Bluetooth and wide area wireless networks. The protagonists (generally the vendors or consultants experienced in only one technology) extend the capabilities of their favorite technology against the other. 

  1. Bluetooth has lower distance range ( less than 30 feet) than 802.11b (up to 200 feet). Therefore, you would need many more access points to cover the same area of an office. Simple mathematics will show that you may need as many as 20-50 times the number of access points. 

  2. Bluetooth has generally lower speed than that of 802.11b wireless LANs.

  3. Bluetooth components (chips and radios) and device adapters are cheaper than wireless LAN components and adapters.

  4. Bluetooth chips have lower power consumption - less drain on battery. 

  5. Bluetooth is more appropriate and affordable technology for communication between smart phones and other accessories or between PDAs and information kiosks.

  6. Bluetooth is younger technology, and therefore is less mature. However, it has a huge following. Purely because of the potential and future expectation built by the Bluetooth vendors, there were over 2000 vendors signed up as members of Bluetooth forum There is a good developers following as well. Wireless LAN industry is smaller but more mature.

  7. It is not fair to run comparisons between Bluetooth and WLAN regarding the number of chips being shipped or expected to be shipped for either technology. Because of its price and the type of products where it is going into, Bluetooth will soon surpass 802.11 chip shipments but dollar volume might still be smaller for some time. Ultimately, Bluetooth dollar volume is expected to catch up.

  8. Bluetooth will go beyond cable replacement in short distances between handheld devices and handheld devices and a kiosk or local server. It will meet the needs of connecting devices at the edge node of a network.

  9. Bluetooth and wireless LANs address different wireless connectivity requirements. Therefore, the two technologies need not and should not compete with each other. If Bluetooth community would not get offended, 802.11b is the big brother and Bluetooth is the younger brother.

 

IEEE 802.11b & 802.11a

Bluetooth 

Time Table 

Standard in 1998, Products in 2000

Standard in 2000, products in 2001 and 2002

Frequency Band and bandwidth

IEEE 802.11b -  2.4 GHz
IEEE 802.11a - 5GHHz
IEEE 802.11g - 2.4 

2.4 GHz 

Speed

11 Mbps- 54 Mbps  (Effective speed - half of rated speed)

1-2 Mbps (Effective speed - less than 50% rated speed)

Modulation Technique

Spread Spectrum
OFDM 

 

Distance Coverage

Up to 300 feet - 802.11b
Up to 60 ft - 802.11a

Up to 30 feet now  - efforts to increase coverage and speed 

 

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Wireless • Bluetooth • GPRS • Broadband, ISDN & Dial-Up • VPN