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Bluetooth Vs 802.11b Wireless LANs

Co-existence of Bluetooth & Wi-Fi

Wi-Fi (Wireless Fidelity) is really for when cabling is not a feasible option and Bluetooth is for intercommunication between devices without the need for a PC. Several vendors (Intersil, Silicon Wave and Mobilian) are building chips that will support both technologies in the same card. This will enable each of the two technologies to be used for what they are best suited to do. Chip set provider Intersil and Bluetooth radio maker Silicon Wave announced reference design that allows simultaneous operation of two protocols. Both operate in the same band. The vendors seem to be addressing interference issues between the two technologies. Blue802 technology uses a time-slicing technique in which two protocols switch back and forth fast enough to give the appearance of simultaneous operation.

Advantages & Disadvantages

Merits :-

Interoperability
Scalability
Inexpensive
Voice/data compatible
Allows for the formation of an Ad-hoc network
Low power consumption
Universal link
Secure data and safe transmission

Demerits :-

Short Range
Low data rate
RF Band is shared

Bluetooth’s advantage over Infrared (IrDA – Infrared Data Association) is its ability to connect 1-to-many devices rather than 1-to-1. Infrared requires a direct line of sight in order to operate and has a range of approximately one meter. Bluetooth developers have said they did not intend to create an alternative to IrDA but so many companies are now replacing the devices IrDA slot with Bluetooth.

I hope you liked my series of articles on Bluetooth technolgy. In the next article we will learn about "How the Bluetooth technology works" .

About the Author: Nupur Mittal is doing 3rd Year, B.E., Computer Science & Engg. Ghurdhauri, India. This is the first article on the BlueTooth Technology and the others will be published shortly. Please use the comments section to thank Nupur for the wonderful article series.

First Page: Bluetooth Vs 802.11b Wireless LANs

Read Next: Bluetooth Technology Models and Future

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