By Dan Jones
The Bluetooth consortium is introducing its final official specification, version 1.0, today (Monday). The group, which was founded by LM Ericsson Telefon AB, Nokia Oy, Intel Corp, IBM Corp and Toshiba Corp in June last year, described the introduction as a significant milestone in the launch of the program. Bluetooth is short-wave radio-based wireless interconnection specification, intended to enable 1Mb per second data transfer between enabled devices at distances of up to ten feet.
The consortium has released two documents related to the specification. The Specification 1 foundation core gives the technical bones of the specification, while the foundation profile is an implementation guide that helps to define how the technology is used within a specific unit. With so many different devices – from laptop computers to wireless headsets – expected to use the technology, compatibility is key if Bluetooth is to succeed.
Simon Ellison, marketing and communications manager at Intel’s mobile communications division, said that 200 engineers had been working on the spec. Nokia and Ericsson had been key in driving the radio and baseband hardware definition, while Intel has been leading the software development he said. Bluetooth hardware and software is based on the standard seven layer networking model. Ellison said that the lower levels of dealt with device to network connection and moved through modifying data and changing it into formats that could be handled by different devices and on up to the application layer. Ellison stressed that Bluetooth is not a standalone local network but rather a data transport mechanism between devices or devices and networks.
The consortium is pushing Bluetooth as an extremely broad usage specification. Recently, IBM was said to be considering the Infrared Data Association (IrDA) spec as an alternative to Bluetooth. Ellison said that infrared was a good option for very specific applications. For instance, the point and squirt technology has very high data transfer rates (4Mbps) and can be optimized to work well with specific devices – such as network computers. However, Ellison said that IrDA could only transfer data over very short distances with the enabled devices facing each other, has no voice transfer capabilities and offers no security in data transfer. Similarly, the 802.11 wireless LAN specification that Apple Computer Corp has used in its ‘Airport’ wireless connection product for the iBook portable computer offers no voice capability, Ellison said.
The Bluetooth specification was originally due to be announced at the end of June. Ellison said that the spec had been delayed, because with 867 members in the Bluetooth special interest group, the review process had been more lengthy than originally anticipated. The consortium is now planning to start working on product qualification. Extensive system-to-system testing will start in the first quarter next year, with product arriving throughout the year. Products such as radio chips from Cambridge Silicon Radio have been announced. Ellison pointed out that none of the announced products was a qualified Bluetooth product, but was based on an earlier unofficial version of the spec. However, he admitted, nothing has been deleted from the final cut of the spec from earlier revisions.
Ellison had no details on specific Bluetooth related products that Intel would be releasing. However, expect to see Bluetooth chipsets for laptops being rolled out by Intel next year. á
