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!
Yup, and here's why.. (Score:4, Interesting)
Somebody turned me onto this page [personaltelco.net] that talks about how a group of guys are making a mission out of setting up localized, free wireless access to the Internet, with the ultimate goal being able to fire up your laptop anywhere within your city and get on the net for free. All it takes is a couple hundred dollars (which isnt much when shared between 20 people who pitch in, initially) and a guy who controls anything as meager as a DSL line willing to "donate" some of his bandwidth to the antenna.
If anything, stuff like this will kill Bluetooth from a purely VHS vs. Beta sort of way. When it comes down to a fight between popular acceptance versus quality of technology, popular acceptance always wins.
Cheers,
802.11 adapters shrinking w/ the silicon... (Score:2, Interesting)
A little know fact is that you can vary the power on 802.11 adapters/accesspoints to acheive much of the "short range" capabilities of bluetooth.
A review of the xircom 802.11 springboard module.
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/wireless/2001/0
--iamnotayam
Re:Sure it will (Score:3, Interesting)
Your wait will be even longer: Bluetooth is supposed to do *exactly the same thing*! One of Bluetooth's purposes is wireless mice/keyboards that work with each other, unlike the proprietary standards of today. If you think the wait for monitors with USB hubs was long, wait until you see the wait for monitors with Bluetooth receivers. The monitor industry's already been burned by this once with USB, they won't be so quick to jump on the bandwagon with yet another standard that doesn't really add value to the monitor.
Bluetooth gets a push from Sony (Score:2, Interesting)
I just came across this on Yahoo... looks like Sony's new Handicams will have Bluetooth chips built in:
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010820/tc/tec
Small and Low Power IS possible. (Score:1, Interesting)
802.11 has an upgrade path. There will be higher data rates, the problems with WEP are getting slowly solved, and they are working on Quality of Service for Voice and Video devices just like this one.
Bluetooth can not keep up.
Re:Misunderstood Technologies 802.11b and Bluetoot (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Did they ban cordless phones too? (Score:2, Interesting)
With the 802.11x security problems that have been exposed recently, I'd say that we need a new wireless standard altogether. One that is all-encompassing. Low power/bandwidth for those portables and more bandwidth for the other devices.
Re:Sure it will (Score:3, Interesting)
Bluetooth does different things. (Score:4, Interesting)
I went to Ericsson once where they showed us a bunch of stuff working over bluetooth (vending machines, connections to pda's, laptops, internet radios, web pads and overhead beamers) and I must say I was impressed.
Interference may be an issue though but in the long run I think a technology like Bluetooth (not necesarily Bluetooth itself) will reach a large market. At some point in the future we will all probably have some fiber/DSL X megabit line into our home which is hooked up to some routing thing that sends the whole stream into the air thru some shortish range technology. From that point on we can access that broadband line from every Bluetooth enables device in our home. You don't need a high power 150' range wireless lan for that, you'd just upset the neighbourhood then.
Wireless lan may be able to do the same thing but as far as I know it's probably going to be a lot more expensive, Bluetooth and wireless lan are 2 different things (which was one of the first things I heard from the Ericsson people) with different uses. The Bluetooth organisation thingy whatever comittee or something wants to get the price of a chip under $5 so practically every manufacturer will throw in bluetooth, if only as a marketing thing. I don't see that happening with wireless lan.
Besides all that LAN's Ethernet, AFAIK, and Bluetooth makes individual connections to different devices on different frequencies, again AFAIK. Bluetooth just seems a lot more efficient to hook up devices that don't need a gazillion bits to operate at an acceptable level.
Ok, I'll stop ranting now, it's the end of the working day and I can't say I'm feeling very coherent
Re:Yup, and here's why.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Jeezus how did this post get rated +4???
Bluetooth is not designed nor intended to do what you're describing. That is what 802.11 is for! This will not kill Bluetooth. Bluetooth is like USB without the cables. It's for short-distance, low-power communication. That's IT!
Re:Misunderstood Technologies 802.11b and Bluetoot (Score:3, Interesting)
Most of the consulting I have done in evaluating wireless LAN products has led to the conclusion that it is only good for laptops, and only light to moderate use at that. Most coders or DBAs won't touch it if they can't get 100 Mbps.
Not quite... (Score:3, Interesting)
In fact, given 802's security problems with weak encryption, it's likely to be replaced in a few years with something stronger. Which doesn't mean that free bootleg connections and a semi-anonymous, always-on world aren't coming anyway.
Re:Hard to tell (Ack! Ack! Microsoft ATTACKS) (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem is this: Microsoft is dis'ing Bluetooth and pushing 802.11 for all the wrong reasons. 802.11 is a good technology but it forces the small device( ie Palms ) to be bigger. WinCE devices are already FAT because the OS and the plethora of capabilities pre-packaged. This is why Microsoft is pushing 802.11 over Bluetooth. It takes care of two big headaches it has.....Palm based handhelds are becoming the place were users keep their data and the computer/network is a backup or copy of the PDA. This isn't what Microsoft wants because it wants to own your data and charge you to access it. By pushing for the death of Bluetooth it stalls Palms move into wireless, leaves Palm handhelds stranded by requiring it be "tethered" to a computer they can keep track of, and gets another shot at moving your data into it's hands instead of yours.
Another technology attacked to preserve the almighty Microsoft corporation.....
The Bluetooth niche (Score:1, Interesting)
802.11b has probably become too cheap for Bluetooth to take hold. There's no justification for it unless it's a lot cheaper.
Re:Bluetooth will fail just like infrared did (Score:2, Interesting)
Hmmmm, you think the lack of IRDA peripherals might have had something to do with it, though? I loaded the drivers the instant I got my first IR-equipped laptop, but I could walk around all day and not find anything to interact with. (Hey, lay off my personal life!) There just wasn't anything useful to do unless you had an infrared printer. PDAs had crummy synchronization tools back then, let alone infrared.
but with Windows 2000, Mircosoft has dropped support altogether.
Huh? I just printed to an HP printer over infrared with my Win2k laptop all the time. Works great - it's the best infrared support they've had yet.
It would have been cool, but... (Score:3, Interesting)
The real problem is that Bluetooth has a range of only about 10m. In one famous example, an expo was supposed to have wired an entire building with Bluetooth. They put the access points in the ceiling. The problem was, the ceiling was over 10m high! So it was a bust.
The criticism of the article that the two products have different uses makes sense, because Bluetooth isn't being "beaten" by 802.11. 802.11 has an actual use, a market, and products people want to buy. If Bluetooth dies, it'll be because it died on its own, without help or hindrance from 802.11.