If you already have a wireless network for your computers, you
may be very interested in what’s coming next. Would you like it
if your PDA, your mobile phone, your mp3 player and almost
everything else you connect to your computer could be wireless
too? It’s already a reality…
Personal Area Network.
Using wireless networking with your personal gadgets is often
called PAN, which stands for Personal Area Network. The idea is
that, in the future, we’ll all have laptop computers with their
batteries charged and no more need to connect any wires to them
at all — you just place your Bluetooth device near the
computer, and the computer sees it and can use it straightaway.
Bluetooth has been around and in-use since 1999, and it’s only
getting more popular. It was designed to be secure, low cost,
and easy to use from day one.
There are two classes of Bluetooth that are in popular use:
class 1 and class 2. Class 2 is the most common and cheaper
standard, allowing you to use a device that is up to 10 metres
(32 feet) away. Class 1 is rarer, but you can still find devices
that use it easily enough, and it has ten times the range: 100
metres or 320 feet.
How Does It Work?
Bluetooth is more flexible than 802.11 wireless networking, in
exchange for the shorter range. Essentially, a Bluetooth-enabled
computer has one Bluetooth receiver installed in it, and this
receiver can then be used with up to 7 nearby Bluetooth devices.
On the other end, wireless devices do not need to have Bluetooth
installed if they support it — it is already integrated.
Like 802.11, Bluetooth works by using radio signals to create
bandwidth. It is not, though, the same thing as an old-style
wireless mouse or keyboard, which required a receiver to be
plugged into one of your computers’ ports, and didn’t have range
or stability anywhere near that of Bluetooth.
Many computers now come with built in Bluetooth, especially
Apple Macs. If you want to add Bluetooth to a computer that
doesn’t come with it pre-installed, you should probably use a
USB to Bluetooth adapter, although internal Bluetooth devices to
install in your computer are available. If you have a laptop and
a spare PCMCIA slot, you can get Bluetooth cards for that too.
What Can You Do With Bluetooth?
Mobile phones with Bluetooth are very popular, and so are PDAs
– the instant synchronisation of addresses and calendars to a
computer is a useful feature. Other than that, almost anything
that would usually use USB can be done using Bluetooth,
including digital cameras, mp3 players, printers, and even mice
and keyboards. If you take a look through the comprehensive list
of Bluetooth ‘profiles’ (kinds of devices that could, in theory,
be Bluetooth enabled), it includes cordless phones, faxes,
headsets, and even video.
Basically, more than anything, Bluetooth is a replacement for
USB: some say that while 802.11 wireless networking is wireless
Ethernet, Bluetooth is wireless USB.
Not Just for Computers.
Part of the power of Bluetooth is that it isn’t just used to
connect things to computers — it can be used to connect almost
anything to anything else, if both things are Bluetooth-enabled
and recognise each other.
Mobile phones, in particular, take advantage of this. Hands-free
headsets often use Bluetooth to communicate with the phone. Some
cars, for example, now have on-board computers that will connect
with a Bluetooth phone and allow you to make hands-free calls,
regardless of where the phone is in the car (even if you’ve left
it in your bag in the trunk!)
On top of that, of course, Bluetooth devices can communicate
with each other. This has led to some people sending messages
from their Bluetooth PDAs to others in close range — not an
especially useful feature, but quite fun. This is called
‘bluejacking’, and the first recorded instance of it was a man
who sent a Bluetooth message to another man’s Nokia phone while
they were in a bank together. What did the message say? ‘Buy
Ericsson’.
Since then, it has become possible to send images by
bluejacking, and it is widely believed to be the newest
advertising medium — yes, it lets billboards send messages to
your phone, a practice known as ‘bluecasting’. Whether you think
that’s cool or annoying, of course, is your choice.
About the author:
Joe Byrne is a computer specialist specializing in network
communications and Voice over Internet Protocol. Click on Voice over Internet Protocol
for more information on VoIP.