If you need to find information about 802.11b on the web you should try the Wireless LAN Sites search engine at the bottom of the Alltaking.com home page and at the top of the Wireless LAN Top Sites List page.




You can get to that easily by voting for AllTalking.com from the voting links on the main page as well. There is plenty of Bluetooth and WLAN information out there.

--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---

Replying to:

Lotus 1-2-3 what is that? Is that a like Excel? Just kidding.





Several points. Saying bluetooth is a packet network is not entirely correct. It is not layered by CSMA/CD like 802.11 and does error detection and correction differently. Where CSMA/CD and therefore both TCP/IP and 802.11 come to a screeching halt at just greater than 40% capacity due to collisions, Bluetooth degrades gracefully. ATM I believe is a better comparison to Bluetooth than TCP/IP albeit without the speed. Bluetooths SCO links are comparable to ATM virtual circuits in that bandwidth is allocated. ACL links are similar to ATM asynchronous traffic that gets sent over whatever bandwitdth is left. Yes 802.11 is faster and simpler but it is also not suitable for battery power since there are as I understand little provision at present for power saving modes. IMHO I think either bluetooth or 802.11 should move to 5ghz as it is unlikely both will co-exist. Regarding open standards, that is not even an issue. If cell phone or other companies want to layer their own proprietary protocols on top of bluetooth that is their business. I tell you, the PDA/cell phone etc bluetooth market is big but that is just a small piece of the bluetooth apps that are coming out. Further, I found it very difficult to find information on 802.11 on the web. IEEE's site appears useless. However I have the full spec available to me at Bluetooth.Com if I can actually decipher it. I disagree. Bluetooth has maybe missed the LAN window but that ain't all there is. Some of the reading I am hearing also says that Bluetooth creams 802.11 when the two are in the same room. This would make sense since bluetooths peak power is higher since all its energy is in a 1Mhz band and not spread. It ain't over till its over.





I am seeing a lot of development kits, resources, and chips starting to hit the market in full force. Just remember, the best technology does not always win. They both have their strengths and weaknesses. I think Bluetooths biggest weakness will turn out to be its complexity. It is non-trivial.





Ron

--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---

Replying to:

Though I used the word "Stalinist" for effect, the real issue is the


relative openness of the two approaches, which I emphasized.




IBM created a PC standard by creating a de minimis standard - essentially


the functionality of its BIOS and the processor/bus architecture


only. They left the market wide open for innovation at the apps level,


encouraging an ISV market, and at the hardware level, by allowing anyone


who could to create cards and peripherals. Compaq's entry effectively


blocked IBM's later attempt to try to squeeze their partners on margins and


by withholding strategic information.




Apple, on the other hand, took a much more controlling approach. Their


evangelists told app vendors what they could and couldn't do. Their


hardware designers discouraged add-on hardware (in many cases by competing


directly against their most innovative partners).




The Bluetooth vendors (esp. the cellphone centric ones that control the


standard) are determined not to repeat IBM's "mistake" in loosening control


of the industry. So they want to keep the ability to drive cellular bills


higher, block ability to merge Bluetooth networks smoothly into the


Internet fabric, etc. That's part of where their financial weight is


being applied. I.e., they are being like Apple.




Now we've all seen where Apple and IBM families of computing are


today. Apple is an annoying mosquito that Microsoft tolerates because it


prevents too much antitrust attention. A small cadre of devotees love


Apple for its design and its quirks (even its technical superiority in some


dimensions). It's the Jaguar or Corvette of the PC industry.




But innovation moves where innovative users are free to innovate, to


experiment. This is also the problem with the "walled gardens" of WAP


phones. The less advanced but open SMS capabilities seem to be much more


productive of user-centered innovations.




ISDN (the original "Intelligent Network" from the phone companies) was very


much like Bluetooth. Rather than being content to provide a digital path


between users and innovative services, the ISDN plan was focused on the


operators having complete control over what services the user saw. There


was some hardware innovation, but that was limited by the vision the ISDN


planners (get why I see Stalin's 5 year plans here?) had of what services


and apps users wanted or would buy. And a tradition of treating all


customers identically ("universal service") meant that diversity and


innovation was discounted. ISDN finally reached the market primarily in


the form of a low-priced way to get 128kb/s digital service to homes (which


had nothing to do with intelligent phones).




And the platform that attracts the highest rate of innovative *use* is the


one that wins. Innovative *use* is not glitzy visions or fancy plans -


it's customer driven, as they vote with their wallets among richly diverse


alternatives. And that means setting standards only at the lowest layers,


not the top-to-bottom "profiles" that define applications inflexibly.




Perhaps the biggest problem/symptom is the "TCP/IP" profile. Instead of


treating the Bluetooth network as the packet network it is, the profile


layers this on top of a simulated serial link. The idea seems to be to


"backhaul" the TCP connection to a single ISP somewhere. Contrast this


with the architecture of TCP and IP over Wi-Fi networks, which treats the


Wi-Fi network like a packet network. Since the TCP/IP world is rich with


*user* driven innovation, treating TCP/IP as a first-class citizen would


jumpstart Bluetooth. But that is the last thing that 2G, 2.5G, and 3G


operators want - because it might cut their access to "service revenue",


they'd be relegated to competing in commodity services like moving bits


fast. And the Ericsson crowd wants to keep its operator customers happy,


by letting them define when apps roll out and who can supply them. (Nokia,


I suspect, is much more interested in user innovation, which is why they


have invested so heavily in Wi-Fi and 802.11a).




I suspect that if Bluetooth does succeed it will be like ISDN did - the


radios will be exploited, but by renegade innovators who use it as a packet


network, violating the 1.1 standards. Microsoft may well be going in that


direction, if I read backchannel communications correctly. And "low power


802.11" is feasible using the same tricks that Bluetooth has used, but


without the burden of the "planners" who have glommed onto Bluetooth.




In 2000, 802.11 equipment was a business with over $1,000,000,000 in


revenues, and highly profitable. It's way ahead, and Bluetooth has missed


its window.

IMHO, the PC did not succeed because of its 'de minimis' standard. If anything, this caused many problems in the late '80s/early '90s due to the proliferation of many different and incompatible bus standards (EISA, MCA, VL-bus) and software issues like the need to provide different graphics drivers for different applications. Only the 'standardising' forces of Windows and PCI really propelled the growth of PC sales. Even now, with Linux starting to proliferate on different architectures, and powerful PDAs based on MIPS and ARM architectures, it is not entirely clear how the market will go in the future. I agree that Apple's restrictive policy was a shot in the foot, but the company is far from dead, and most of the enthusiastic Apple users I know wouldn't touch a PC with a 10 foot barge pole.




802.11 is a wireless LAN, occupying the bottom 2 layers of the traditional protocol stack, therefore existing networking applications can use 802.11 now. However, it does not really fall into the same category Bluetooth is put under, i.e. a PAN (personal area network). Bluetooth is essentially an infra-red replacer; just looking at the protocol/profiles gives this away (RFCOMM, OBEX). It has the fundamental advantage over IR of not requiring line of sight for transactions, therefore opening up possibilities which were not really available to IR. It is these possibilities which indeed are emerging and will undoubtedly contribute to the success of Bluetooth. The profiles are needed to provide some sort of standardisation to ensure interoperability is not a problem. Establishing a voice connection between two Bluetooth devices requires the same degree of standardisation which exists for, say, using FTP over 802.11. Interoperability is a key issue which must be present for Bluetooth to succeed. I agree that the implementation of TCP/IP over Bluetooth is a bit clumsy, but the pivotal point was chosen to be the serial link (i.e. RFCOMM), which is, after all, what the majority of people still use to connect to the Internet, therefore it seems appropriate enough to go along this route. And as Ronald Kyker has said, the MAC and physical layers are different, and do not map directly to IP packet structure unlike 802.11 datagrams.




ISDN was a quantum leap in technology for telcos who even now haven't got to grips with it at the edge, although seem to have adopted its 'big brother' ATM. ISDN is in fact more like 802.11 as a standard. The difference is that telcos did not have the end-to-end applications except of course voice, as that was primarily their business; only now are data and PSTN networks starting to merge properly, and the true vision of ISDN may well proliferate, albeit over DSL.




I would say Bluetooth is more like GSM, and look at the success that has been. True, it took a while to get there, but it's there - even in the USA.




So all this direct comparison between 802.11 and Bluetooth doesn't really make sense. Yes, Bluetooth could operate as a LAN with TCP/IP running over it. Yes, 802.11 could operate as a PAN, with applications to provide voice transfer, service discovery etc. But they are fundamentally different standards. And FWIW, let's have Bluetooth in the ISM band, and get the faster 802.11b going in the 5GHz band.




Note these are entirely my own views and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Jennic Ltd.

--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---

Replying to:

Though I used the word "Stalinist" for effect, the real issue is the


relative openness of the two approaches, which I emphasized.




IBM created a PC standard by creating a de minimis standard - essentially


the functionality of its BIOS and the processor/bus architecture


only. They left the market wide open for innovation at the apps level,


encouraging an ISV market, and at the hardware level, by allowing anyone


who could to create cards and peripherals. Compaq's entry effectively


blocked IBM's later attempt to try to squeeze their partners on margins and


by withholding strategic information.




Apple, on the other hand, took a much more controlling approach. Their


evangelists told app vendors what they could and couldn't do. Their


hardware designers discouraged add-on hardware (in many cases by competing


directly against their most innovative partners).




The Bluetooth vendors (esp. the cellphone centric ones that control the


standard) are determined not to repeat IBM's "mistake" in loosening control


of the industry. So they want to keep the ability to drive cellular bills


higher, block ability to merge Bluetooth networks smoothly into the


Internet fabric, etc. That's part of where their financial weight is


being applied. I.e., they are being like Apple.




Now we've all seen where Apple and IBM families of computing are


today. Apple is an annoying mosquito that Microsoft tolerates because it


prevents too much antitrust attention. A small cadre of devotees love


Apple for its design and its quirks (even its technical superiority in some


dimensions). It's the Jaguar or Corvette of the PC industry.




But innovation moves where innovative users are free to innovate, to


experiment. This is also the problem with the "walled gardens" of WAP


phones. The less advanced but open SMS capabilities seem to be much more


productive of user-centered innovations.




ISDN (the original "Intelligent Network" from the phone companies) was very


much like Bluetooth. Rather than being content to provide a digital path


between users and innovative services, the ISDN plan was focused on the


operators having complete control over what services the user saw. There


was some hardware innovation, but that was limited by the vision the ISDN


planners (get why I see Stalin's 5 year plans here?) had of what services


and apps users wanted or would buy. And a tradition of treating all


customers identically ("universal service") meant that diversity and


innovation was discounted. ISDN finally reached the market primarily in


the form of a low-priced way to get 128kb/s digital service to homes (which


had nothing to do with intelligent phones).




And the platform that attracts the highest rate of innovative *use* is the


one that wins. Innovative *use* is not glitzy visions or fancy plans -


it's customer driven, as they vote with their wallets among richly diverse


alternatives. And that means setting standards only at the lowest layers,


not the top-to-bottom "profiles" that define applications inflexibly.




Perhaps the biggest problem/symptom is the "TCP/IP" profile. Instead of


treating the Bluetooth network as the packet network it is, the profile


layers this on top of a simulated serial link. The idea seems to be to


"backhaul" the TCP connection to a single ISP somewhere. Contrast this


with the architecture of TCP and IP over Wi-Fi networks, which treats the


Wi-Fi network like a packet network. Since the TCP/IP world is rich with


*user* driven innovation, treating TCP/IP as a first-class citizen would


jumpstart Bluetooth. But that is the last thing that 2G, 2.5G, and 3G


operators want - because it might cut their access to "service revenue",


they'd be relegated to competing in commodity services like moving bits


fast. And the Ericsson crowd wants to keep its operator customers happy,


by letting them define when apps roll out and who can supply them. (Nokia,


I suspect, is much more interested in user innovation, which is why they


have invested so heavily in Wi-Fi and 802.11a).




I suspect that if Bluetooth does succeed it will be like ISDN did - the


radios will be exploited, but by renegade innovators who use it as a packet


network, violating the 1.1 standards. Microsoft may well be going in that


direction, if I read backchannel communications correctly. And "low power


802.11" is feasible using the same tricks that Bluetooth has used, but


without the burden of the "planners" who have glommed onto Bluetooth.




In 2000, 802.11 equipment was a business with over $1,000,000,000 in


revenues, and highly profitable. It's way ahead, and Bluetooth has missed


its window.