IP: THERE'S ROOM FOR BOTH BLUETOOTH AND W-LAN and WIRELESS NETWORKS GO WIDE: Edupage, November 2, 2001

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

THERE'S ROOM FOR BOTH BLUETOOTH AND W-LAN
The wireless local area network (W-LAN) and Bluetooth markets
should be able to co-exist quite well for the next several years,
concluded a recent Forrester Research report. Wireless LAN
technology, which is normally found on notebook PCs, typically
conforms to the 802.11 standard and operates at ranges of several
hundred feet. Bluetooth, which is starting to appear on cellular
phones as well as other portable devices, is a radio-based
wireless network technology that operates at ranges of up to 100
feet. The study found that even though the technologies are very
much alike, they can coexist in the same marketplace because
they are aimed at different industry segments. Forrester's Lars
Godell said W-LAN is superior to Bluetooth in several respects,
but it also has a far greater power requirement than the simple
Bluetooth chip.
(Newsbytes, 26 October 2001)

and

> WIRELESS NETWORKS GO WIDE
> Intel is one of the major technology companies backing a new
> wireless networking standard that would send data at unprecedented
> speeds and is cheap to manufacture. Intel recently appealed to the
> FCC to allocate bandwidth for the ultrawideband (UWB) technology
> that Intel and other firms are developing. Envisioneering Group
> analyst Richard Doherty said that UWB research would likely be
> pioneered for emergency rescue and military applications, since
> it also has the added benefit of working as a short-range radar
> signal. One startup, XtremeSpectrum, already has plans to produce
> a UWB chip next year. CEO Martin Rofheart said UWB has tremendous
> potential because of the low amount of power it uses compared to
> other wireless chips. Even if UWB receives a portion of the radio
> spectrum from the FCC, Intel's Kevin Kahn said consumer deployment
> is at least three years out.
> (Investor's Business Daily, 2 November 2001)


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