The Rumors of Bluetooth's
Demise Are Premature
By: David Shier – Managing
Editor
It’s amazing to me that when someone writes something silly – if it’s sufficiently outrageous – it seems everyone talks about it. Such is the case with an article by Craig Mathias in EE
Times (www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20031013S0040). I had mixed feelings about writing this response, at first I did not feel it was worth commenting on at all. However, given the amount of
attention this ridiculous story has received, I felt it’s time to set the record straight.
So let’s look at what he had to say and why it’s so wrong headed:
Bluetooth is Dead
It started with the title and the first paragraph. “I’ve been thinking along these lines for more than three years”. In those three years, Bluetooth has enjoyed what can only be called
phenomenal growth. In 2000 you were hard pressed to find a Bluetooth enabled phone and about the only thing you could do with it is connect to a Bluetooth headset made by the same
manufacturer. Today, most high quality mobile phones in Europe include Bluetooth. All but the cheapest model of iPAQ from Hewlett Packard has Bluetooth integrated. So what was he
looking at in these last three years? Well his next paragraph gives us a clue and it’s not too encouraging.
Sadly Mathias is stuck in the old Wi-Fi vs. Bluetooth argument. Does anyone else with knowledge of the wireless industry still cling to this tired line of thinking? He claims that “cellular
handsets… will soon be hosting 802.11 radios.” Perhaps, but not for the same purpose that they host Bluetooth radios. As I’m sure our readers know, 802.11 is ideal for connecting to a
local area network, but it was never designed for such things as connecting a phone to a headset. For one thing, Wi-Fi lacks a voice channel that can overcome minor data errors. For
another, Wi-Fi has a huge problem with the type of “ad hoc” connections that Bluetooth can handle easily. Has the author ever needed to print something at someone else’s office? Has he
ever had to make the wonderful choice of either giving a visitor access to a company Wi-Fi network or telling that visitor that they can’t be trusted with such access?
He even claims that Bluetooth “can interfere with 802.11b and g”. If anything should be declared dead, it’s that statement. Has the news of the HP iPAQ 5000 series Pocket PCs with
Bluetooth and Wi-Fi not made it to Ashland, Mass.? If not, perhaps someone should suggest to Craig that he should join us at the Pocket PC Summit next week. There he can experience
a high density of PDAs, phones, laptops, etc. running both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi and all getting along just fine. And after he leaves Las Vegas, I would suggest a side trip to Europe where
Bluetooth is hugely popular.
While the article concedes that millions of Bluetooth chipsets are sold every month, it claims that most are used for headsets and then poses the question: “what’s wrong with a wired
headset?” Well Mr. Mathias, if you really have to ask that question, perhaps you should have a look at this photo of what my wired headset and my Bluetooth headset both look like when
pulled out of my briefcase. And of course, not only are there millions of Bluetooth devices produced each month, but the trend is up not down. And it’s not just in headsets. Recently I
counted more than half a dozen Bluetooth GPS receiver models. Just this year, three automobile companies added integrated Bluetooth options for their new model years. And Sony-Ericsson Mobile even announced a Bluetooth controlled toy mini racer! Few things that are dead are accelerating at such a pace.
Barbarians at the Gate?
The final argument given was that there are new technologies, such as ultra-wide-band radio that are “really close”. This is the craziest of all. Why would anyone think that a brand new
standard will work better than a maturing one? Did any of the current technology standards appear on the market without growing pains? Was Mathias asleep when I was trying to get
wireless LANs to work in the late 1990s? Or perhaps he was using a Mac when PC users were calling USB “plug and pray”. The point is, why should we bank on unproven technology rather
than assuming that all the major companies that have invested in Bluetooth will get their collective act
together?
None of this is to diminish the problems that exist with Bluetooth today. But these problems are far from
terminal. So while it’s clear to me that Bluetooth is not at all dead, I certainly hope
that the buzz surrounding the silly EE Times article is “finished, over.”
