Email Delivery

Receive new posts as email.

Email address

Syndicate this site

RSS | Atom

Contact

About This Site
Contact Us
Privacy Policy

Search


November 2010
Sun Mon Tues Wed Thurs Fri Sat
  1 2 3 4 5 6
7 8 9 10 11 12 13
14 15 16 17 18 19 20
21 22 23 24 25 26 27
28 29 30        

Stories by Category

Basics :: Basics
Casting :: Casting Listen In Podcasts Videocasts
Culture :: Culture Hacking
Deals :: Deals
FAQ :: FAQ
Future :: Future
Hardware :: Hardware Adapters Appliances Chips Consumer Electronics Gaming Home Entertainment Music Photography Video Gadgets Mesh Monitoring and Testing PDAs Phones Smartphones
Industry :: Industry Conferences Financial Free Health Legal Research Vendor analysis
International :: International
Media :: Media Locally cached Streaming
Metro-Scale Networks :: Metro-Scale Networks Community Networking Municipal
Network Types :: Network Types Broadband Wireless Cellular 2.5G and 3G 4G Power Line Satellite
News :: News Mainstream Media
Politics :: Politics Regulation Sock Puppets
Schedules :: Schedules
Security :: Security 802.1X
Site Specific :: Site Specific Administrative Detail April Fool's Blogging Book review Cluelessness Guest Commentary History Humor Self-Promotion Unique Wee-Fi Who's Hot Today?
Software :: Software Open Source
Spectrum :: Spectrum 60 GHz
Standards :: Standards 802.11a 802.11ac 802.11ad 802.11e 802.11g 802.11n 802.20 Bluetooth MIMO UWB WiGig WiMAX ZigBee
Transportation and Lodging :: Transportation and Lodging Air Travel Aquatic Commuting Hotels Rails
Unclassified :: Unclassified
Vertical Markets :: Vertical Markets Academia Enterprise WLAN Switches Home Hot Spot Aggregators Hot Spot Advertising Road Warrior Roaming Libraries Location Medical Public Safety Residential Rural SOHO Small-Medium Sized Business Universities Utilities wISP
Voice :: Voice

Archives

November 2010 | October 2010 | September 2010 | August 2010 | July 2010 | June 2010 | May 2010 | April 2010 | March 2010 | February 2010 | January 2010 | December 2009 | November 2009 | October 2009 | September 2009 | August 2009 | July 2009 | June 2009 | May 2009 | April 2009 | March 2009 | February 2009 | January 2009 | December 2008 | November 2008 | October 2008 | September 2008 | August 2008 | July 2008 | June 2008 | May 2008 | April 2008 | March 2008 | February 2008 | January 2008 | December 2007 | November 2007 | October 2007 | September 2007 | August 2007 | July 2007 | June 2007 | May 2007 | April 2007 | March 2007 | February 2007 | January 2007 | December 2006 | November 2006 | October 2006 | September 2006 | August 2006 | July 2006 | June 2006 | May 2006 | April 2006 | March 2006 | February 2006 | January 2006 | December 2005 | November 2005 | October 2005 | September 2005 | August 2005 | July 2005 | June 2005 | May 2005 | April 2005 | March 2005 | February 2005 | January 2005 | December 2004 | November 2004 | October 2004 | September 2004 | August 2004 | July 2004 | June 2004 | May 2004 | April 2004 | March 2004 | February 2004 | January 2004 | December 2003 | November 2003 | October 2003 | September 2003 | August 2003 | July 2003 | June 2003 | May 2003 | April 2003 | March 2003 | February 2003 | January 2003 | December 2002 | November 2002 | October 2002 | September 2002 | August 2002 | July 2002 | June 2002 | May 2002 | April 2002 | March 2002 | February 2002 | January 2002 | December 2001 | November 2001 | October 2001 | September 2001 | August 2001 | July 2001 | June 2001 | May 2001 | April 2001 |

Recent Entries

In-Flight Wi-Fi and In-Flight Bombs
Can WPA Protect against Firesheep on Same Network?
Southwest Sets In-Flight Wi-Fi at $5
Eye-Fi Adds a View for Web Access
Firesheep Makes Sidejacking Easy
Wi-Fi Direct Certification Starts
Decaf on the Starbucks Digital Network
Google Did Snag Passwords
WiMax and LTE Not Technically 4G by ITU Standards
AT&T Wi-Fi Connections Keep High Growth with Free Service

Site Philosophy

This site operates as an independent editorial operation. Advertising, sponsorships, and other non-editorial materials represent the opinions and messages of their respective origins, and not of the site operator. Part of the FM Tech advertising network.

Copyright

Entire site and all contents except otherwise noted © Copyright 2001-2010 by Glenn Fleishman. Some images ©2006 Jupiterimages Corporation. All rights reserved. Please contact us for reprint rights. Linking is, of course, free and encouraged.

Powered by
Movable Type

« Linksys, Vonage Team on G Router with VoIP | Main | Firetide Moves up to 5 GHz »

November 8, 2004

Bluetooth To Be Made Vaguely Faster, Harder to Use

The Bluetooth SIG responds to its near-term extinction by tripling speeds and lengthening security codes: Bluetooth's blazing fast 1 Mbps maximum speed will be tripled in a new version to 3 Mbps. Send up the fireworks. Enhanced Data Rate will be certified next year, but a few products offer it now.

Security will also be improved, but it's hard to see how this will help Bluetooth any: the current four-digit codes will be lengthened to make it harder to sniff a Bluetooth pairing and crack it offline. Since Bluetooth is already irritating to handshake--why not use a simplified public-key infrastructure to handle keys for users since on group owns the spec?--a longer sequence means more likelihood of failure. You see where Wi-Fi went: either a credentials-based login with a username and password (802.1X) or passphrase--not arbitrary PIN sequences--for WPA.

Bluetooth is reeling from the ratification and/or industry-group cohesion and near-term deployment of several technologies that challenge its basis: low-power, cost, and "simplicity." Bluetooth was supposed to be easier than Wi-Fi, if you can remember when that was the case.

Zigbee is designed for extremely low-power, short-range use as a way to communicate configuration information among primarily home electronics. WIth a standard configuration schema, you could actually have a universal remote control. Zigbee devices are a trade group version of IEEE 802.15.4.

Ultrawideband (UWB) has the potential for several hundred megabytes per second over very short distances, and a reasonable speed at as much as 30 meters, and the power use and cost should make it competitive when it really starts rolling in 2006. UWB's first incarnation will be either as a version of 802.15.3a, a high-speed personal area network standard, or in the splinter groups that represent a majority of the industry--the Multi-Band OFDM Alliance, the Wireless USB Promoters Group, and others.

Finally, even 802.11b in its single-chip, low-power version available from several firms, may give Bluetooth a run for its money. If cell phones and other devices wind up embedding 802.11b or its faster 802.11g relative, then why bother with Bluetooth at all? For extremely low battery use devices, like earpieces, I can see the problem with Wi-Fi. But for most other categories, they're going to have to learn to live with low-power Wi-Fi to be useful in the coming months and years.

3 TrackBacks

Bluetooth To Be Made Faster from Lockergnome's Mobile Lifestyle on November 8, 2004 10:15 PM

A testament to 'faster is not always better, Wi-Fi Networking News reports that is being bumped up from 1Mbps to a full 3 Mbps.As if that was not enough, security will also be improved too. On the down side though,... Read More

Ayer, el SIG (Blutooth Special Interest Group) anunció la adopción de Bluetooth Version 2.0 + EDR (Enhanced Data Rate), esta nueva especificación promete transferencia de datos hasta tres veces más veloz y un 50% de consumo de energía, para mejora... Read More

Bluetooth To Be Made Faster from Lockergnome's Mobile Lifestyle on November 10, 2004 1:17 PM

A testament to 'faster is not always better, Wi-Fi Networking News reports that it is being bumped up from 1Mbps to a full 3 Mbps. As if that was not enough, security will also be improved too. On the down... Read More

3 Comments

Quick question. Will UWB take up more power than Bluetooth? Less power consumed is one of the reasons bluetooth is so important.

UWB is lower powered relative to bandwidth and distance, but it will certainly require more than Bluetooth for the same scale device. I think one of the issues is whether 802.11b (rather than UWB in this scenario) can offer higher bandwidth at the same energy cost, along with forward compatibility with 802.11g and 802.11n.

nice analysis -- bluetooth desperately wants to be everything to everyone in the wireless space -- needs to stick to what it originally sold: simplicity of connections.

http://www.pulsepipe.com