All about the Bluetooth Technology

What is Bluetooth?
Bluetooth is the name for a short-range radio frequency (RF) technology that operates at 2.4 GHz and is capable of transmitting voice and data. The effective range of Bluetooth devices is 32 feet (10 meters). Bluetooth transfers data at the rate of 1 Mbps, which is from three to eight times the average speed of parallel and serial ports, respectively.

How is Bluetooth used?
Bluetooth can be used to wirelessly synchronize and transfer data among devices. Bluetooth can be thought of as a cable replacement technology. Typical uses include automatically synchronizing contact and calendar information among desktop, notebook and palmtop computers without connecting cables. Bluetooth can also be used to access a network or the Internet with a notebook computer by connecting wirelessly to a cellular phone.

Why is the technology called Bluetooth?
The heart of the Bluetooth brand identity is the name, which refers to the Danish king Harald "Bluetooth" Blaatand who unified Denmark and Norway. In the beginning of the Bluetooth wireless technology era, Bluetooth was aimed at unifying the telecom and computing industries.

What is the future direction of the Bluetooth standard?
At this time, we anticipate the Bluetooth SIG to evolve the Bluetooth technology to provide greater bandwidth and distances, thus increasing the potential platforms and applications used in the emerging personal area networking marketplace

How secure is a Bluetooth network?
Ans: Bluetooth is extremely secure in that it employs several layers of data encryption and user authentication measures. Bluetooth devices use a combination of the Personal Identification Number (PIN) and a Bluetooth address to identify other Bluetooth devices. Data encryption (i.e., 128-bit) can be used to further enhance the degree of Bluetooth security. The transmission scheme provides another level of security in itself. Instead of transmitting over one frequency within the 2.4 GHz band, Bluetooth radios use a fast frequency-hopping spread spectrum technique, allowing only synchronized receivers to access the transmitted data.