Will 802.11 Kill Bluetooth? 228
joshwa writes "NYTimes (free reg. required) has an article about the struggles of the Bluetooth folks to fine-tune their technology and get the costs down far enough. The most interesting part is that analysts seem to think that 802.11's (what is this new 'Wi-Fi' moniker?) growing popularity will overshadow Bluetooth's entrance into the marketplace, and will beat Bluetooth into the small devices market. Can 802.11 actually work in a Palm or a cell phone?" The article, IMHO, misses the difference in uses - if you've got a small device that you want to conserve power on, and only communicate small distances, Bluetooth's ideal. If you've got a lot of power, a la a notebook computer, and want to communicate 150 ft., then 802.11 is what you want. Imagine that: Different uses! Different standards! Amazing!
Hard to tell right now (Score:4, Informative)
What will probably happen (as seems to happen a lot) is that one major vendor or provider will choose a certain standard, regardless of its value, or without a thought as to whether or not two technologies can be mutually compatible (as the writer above mentions). Then its time to push it down everyone's throats until the other one disappears.
Sad, but true.
If you want 802.11b in your hand... (Score:4, Informative)
registration free link (Score:2, Informative)
802.11 is Insecure, How's Bluetooth? (Score:2, Informative)
"Cipher attack delivers heavy blow to WLAN security - A new report dashes any remaining illusions that 802.11-based (Wi-Fi) wireless local-area networks are in any way secure"
EE Times Article. [eetimes.com]
Hmm, the attack scales linearly with number of bits. Bummer.
Re:If you want 802.11b in your hand... (Score:3, Informative)
(I haven't tried it yet, but the WL110 [compaq.com] looks to be the best solution for 802.11. I plan on getting it to work with my schools wireless LAN - I've tried, and Pocket Internet Explorer is capable of rendering Slashdot natively - dunno about Linux solutions, my serial port is toast so I can't put Linux on the iPaq - yet. (And no, the iPaq didn't fry it - my UPS did, AFAIK
Re:I almost hope so... (Score:1, Informative)
Different uses! Same standard! (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, we're better off using the same standard for different uses, wherever possible. Do you want to go back to TCP/IP, IPX, and NetBEUI on every LAN? Ethernet and token ring? They all have different uses, but they're close enough that we should just pick one pretending that it will work in all situations, then make the best of it.
Bluetooth and 802.11 are clearly in this situation, IMO. The main difference between them: one is for near and one for far. This makes sense by strict engineering standards, but in the big picture it's a detail. If 802.11 becomes the standard, we'll make it scale down to "near". Not to mention (as did another poster), what do I do if I'm "in between"? There are other parts to Bluetooth, but nothing that can't be layered on top of another network (in the Internet tradition of "dumb network, smart endpoints").
Re:Sure it will (Score:4, Informative)
I'm not sure what the original poster meant about access points understanding both protocols. Last I heard the two ideas under discussion were to modify Bluetooth's hopping protocol and/or regulating Bluetooth signal strength. Both of those are Bluetooth changes and have nothing to do with access points "understanding" both protocols.
Re:If you want 802.11b in your hand... (Score:5, Informative)
No you wouldn't.
I have both an Apple Airport base-station and a Handspring Visor.
So do I...
Why I won't buy it: $299 + tax + shipping.
Why you SHOULDN'T buy it:
It's not WiFi compliant, which means IT DOESN'T WORK WITH AIRPORT. It will only work with the Xircom access point. (Standards? What standards?)
But wait! It gets better! After biting my tongue on many bad words and buying the @#($&@!! Xircom Special Super Secret 802.11 Version access point, you know what we found? There's a bug in the Ethernet->PPP translation layer THAT THROTTLES THE CONNECTION TO SERIAL SPEED. Palm acknowledges it but has no plans to fix it.
As a matter of fact, names removed to protect the guilty, here's what Palm had to say about it EXACTLY:
...I'm not sure you're gonna get a super-high bandwidth connection on today's PalmOS. Maybe the symbol device would be good--I think that they take the PPP overhead out, since I think they have a real ethernet driver...
So, at this moment, the Quest For Handheld Bandwidth here is hoping that the new Xircom m505 cradle, which IS alleged to be WiFi compliant, will magically give us a video strength connection without changing anything.
If not, well, off to worship at the altar of the Beast from Red Mound we go, I suppose. An @migo PD-600C is on its way here too...
Re:But 802.11 Is Cracked (Score:1, Informative)
What has been cracked is the WEP encryption standard, which was supposed to "provide privacy similar to that of a wire" but failed miserably due to a flawed protocol and weaknesses in the key scheduling algorithm used for the RC4 implimentation.
If you didn't use WEP then all your traffic was in the clear anyway.
Use a smaller 802.11b radio (Score:5, Informative)
I know this has already been partially said... (Score:4, Informative)
In a nutshell this article is the equivlent of saying that Ethernet is going to kill off USB, because it's obviously so much faster and stuff.
802.11 vs Bluetooth, security, and Wi-Fi (Score:4, Informative)
1. The statement that Bluetooth is lower power than 802.11 is currently false. Okay, it has a lower power transmitter, yes, but so far, last I knew, nobody had produced a Bluetooth radio that wasn't at least as much of a power hog as an 802.11 radio... and any 802.11 radio that has a power-saving mode does _much_ better than a Bluetooth radio. Bluetooth was also supposed to be cheaper, but the manufacturers are discovering that they are having a tough time bringing down the cost on that, too. Given time, these problems can be overcome, however, 802.11 happens to have a large headstart on both the cost and power fronts, and therefore has a good chance of preventing Bluetooth from being able to compete (nobody wants to invest a bunch of resources into a standard that the market hasn't yet truly clamored for).
2. Bluetooth and 802.11b interoperability. Without breaking one standard or the other, it ain't going to happen. And even if you do break one standard, it won't be backwards compatible. The two standards conflict too much. 802.11b has a back-off mechanism. Bluetooth doesn't. I actually did some work looking into building a Bluetooth/802.11b AP that would try to cleanly give both Bluetooth and 802.11b time on the air without breaking either standard. It's too difficult. Bluetooth is just to strict on the timing (not to mention the big problem that some Bluetooth cards refuse to give up being the Master).
3. 802.11 security was not broken. WEP was broken. Badly. But WEP is not the end-all, be-all of security. And yes, the industry _is_ working on better security, and has been for some time. IEEE 802.11 Task Group e is still in the process of agreeing upon a method for point-to-point security, with dynamically session keys, including a username/password setup. This is what the industry has wanted for some time. WEP was only meant to slow down the script kiddies who would just sit in parking lots with their cards set to associate to "ANY". I really wish people would stop assuming that WEP is the entirety of wireless security. It is not, and was never intended to be. One more note on this: it was not 802.11x that was broken. I'm not sure what 802.11x is, but it isn't a security standard. 802.1x is a LAN security standard, but even that isn't what was broken. Just WEP.
4. 802.11, 802.11a, 802.11b, 802.11. 802.11 is the general IEEE group for Wireless LAN networking. 802.11b is the 11Mbps standard. 802.11a is the 5GHz 54Mbps standard (once they decide exactly what that standard is). TGe, which should translate to 802.11e will be the new security standard. There are others (including a standard for 22Mbps in the 2.4GHz band, which I _think_ is 802.11h), but I don't remember what most of them are.
5. Wi-Fi stands for "Wireless Fidelity". Basically, a bunch of 802.11 card manufacturers got tired of the fact that different cards that implemented IEEE 802.11 were not interoperable. So WECA was born (Wireless Ethernet Compatibility Alliance). WECA decided that "IEEE 802.11" wasn't a marketing-friendly name, so they came up with "Wireless Fidelity" or "Wi-Fi" for short. Despite the marketing speak, this is actually a good organization. They have a whole slew of tests to determine whether an 802.11 radio is compatible with others that have passed the tests. If they pass, they get to put the Wi-Fi logo on their product. If a product has the Wi-Fi logo, then it can interoperate with any other radio that has passed the WECA tests. So there is a very minor distinction between Wi-Fi and 802.11. Basically, it is possible for a radio to implement 802.11 and not be Wi-Fi, but at this point, no company in their right mind would do so.
Well, that pretty much ends my rant. Take it for what you will.
-Freeptop
Re:If you want 802.11b in your hand... (Score:1, Informative)
The Xircom Handspring module may not be "WiFi compliant", but IT DOES WORK WITH AIRPORT.
I have personally seen people have used the Xircom Handspring modules with the Apple Airport base station, the Lucent/Orinoco RG-1000, and the Lucent AP-1000. You don't have to buy their access point.
About the Xircom being throttled to serial speed. If we are talking 115200, then you not hurting much. How much data can the Handspring handle?
Once again, complete misunderstanding. (Score:3, Informative)
If 802.11b succeeds (it already is) it will have nothing to do with how well Bluetooth does, and vice versa. Once again, to refresh, the point of bluetooth is this:
A low-cost all-inclusive chipset (1 or 2 chips) that can be added to any device to bluetooth-enable it. YES it's short range, low power. It was *designed* that way; it's not a shortcoming.
The whole idea was that, rather than have every company design proprietary wireless systems, they should all get together, develop a low-cost spec, and let the new market that's created work for itself.
of COURSE a palm *could* use 802.11b.... but it takes more power, and is overkill. Confuscious say 'Don't use a cannon to kill a mosquito'