A Comparison of Bluetooth and competing technologies

1
A Comparison of Bluetooth and competing
technologies
2
Technologies

• Bluetooth
• IrDA
• HomeRF

3
What well talk about

• Purpose and Specifications
• Communication Protocols and Network Topology
• Disadvantages and Advantages in certain scenarios
  
• Application comparison, consumer criteras,
  business analysts

4
Purpose

• Why Bluetooth?
• The Bluetooth specification is a global
  technology that allows wireless communication and
  networking between PCs and other portable devices.

• Why HomeRF?
• HomeRF enables different consumer electronic
  devices to communicate with each other while
  providing users with a complete home network
  solution. Users will be able to dial in from a
  remote location and control any device.

• Why IrDA?
• IrDA is intended for point-to-point links between
  two devices for simple data transfers and file
  synchronization.

5
Technical Specifications

• Transmission Technology
• Bluetooth HomeRF Radio Frequency
• IrDA Infrared Light Beams

• Spectrum
• Bluetooth HomeRF 2.45 GHz
• IrDA Optical

6
Technical Specification (cont.)

• Connection Type
• Bluetooth HomeRF spread spectrum
• IrDA Infrared, narrow beam

• Data Rate
• Bluetooth 1 MB
• HomeRF 2 MB
• IrDA 4MB

7
Technical Specification (cont.)

• Range

Bluetooth 3 meters HomeRF 50 meters
IrDA 1 meter

• Maximum of devices

Bluetooth Up to 8 devices per piconet HomeRF Up
to 127 devices per network
IrDA 2 devices

• Optimal Use

Bluetooth HomeRF Home Networking
IrDA Short Range one-to-one data exchange
8
Communication Protocols
Provides what application are able to run.
Applications
RFCOMM / SDP
L2CAP
Host Controller Interface (HCI)
Link Manager (LM)
Baseband
Radio
RFCOMM Provides emulation of serial ports over
the L2CAP. SDP Provides a means for applications
to discover which services are available and to
determine the characteristics of those available
services
Provides connection-oriented and connectionless
data services to upper layer protocols with
protocol multiplexing capability, segmentation,
and reassembly operation and group abstractions.
Provides a command interface to the baseband
controller and link manager, and access to
hardware status and control registers.
Carries out link setup, authentication, link
configuration, etc.
Manages physical channels and links (asynchronous
and synchronous), handles packets, paging and
inquiry to access Bluetooth devices in the area.
Bluetooth
Defines the requirements for the Bluetooth
transceiver device.
9
Communication Protocols (cont.)
HomeRF uses, references and maps existing network
layers.
Existing Upper Layers Existing Upper Layers Existing Upper Layers
TCP UDP DECT
IP IP DECT
HomeRF MAC Layer HomeRF MAC Layer HomeRF MAC Layer
HomeRF PHY Layer HomeRF PHY Layer HomeRF PHY Layer

• MAC layer is optimized for the home environment
  and is designed to carry both voice and data
  traffic.
• Good support for voice and data by using both
  TDMA and CSMA/CA access mechanisms.
• Support for 4 high quality voice connections.
• High data throughput 1.6Mbps.
• Data security.
• Power management for Isochronous and Asynchronous
  nodes.
• 24 bit Network ID.

• Physical layer has been modified significantly
  to reduce cost, while still maintaining more than
  adequate performance for home usage scenarios .
• Transmit power up to 24dBm
• Receiver Sensitivity in 2FSK
• Optional low power transmit mode 0 to 4 dBm for
  portable devices.

HomeRF
10
Communication Protocol (cont).
Provides multiplexing of the IrLAP layer. Multiple channels above an IrLAP connection Provides protocol and service discovery by 121.
Infrared Link Management Protocol (IrLMP)
Infrared Link Access Protocol (IrLAP)
Physical Signaling Layer
Provides a device-to-device connection Device discover procedures Handles hidden nodes
Provides continuous operation from contact. wireless point-to-point link between 2 independent nodes Data packets are protected using a CRC. Data transmission from 9600 b/s
11
Network Topology
12
Bluetooth Piconet and Scatternet

• Piconet connects 7 devices with one host talking
  to 7 clients.
• Clients have to talk to each other through the
  host.
• Scatternet allows groups of piconets to
  communicate with each other.
• Scatternet also has a host controlling groups of
  piconets.

13
Spectrum Collisions

• HomeRF, Bluetooth, IEEE 802.11b use the same ISM
  2.45 GHz frequency band.
• If all 3 used in same vicinity, the technologies
  will disrupt and/or cancel each other.
• With FHSS and different hop rates (Bluetooth-
  1600 hops/sec, HomeRF?) it minimizes the changes
  that they will interfere with each other.

14
HomeRF Interference Immunity

• Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum
• Corruption happen only in small packets
• High power transmission
• Able to avoid some of the interfering frequency
• Hopset adaptation makes sure that retry will be
  free of interference
• Less consecutive bad hops

15
HomeRF Security

• 128-bit key encryption, 32-bit Initialization
  Vector(repeats every half a year)
• Network ID needed to synchronize frequency
  hopping
• Denial service attack unlikely
• Disruptor must determine the frequency of HomeRF
  access point
• Access points hop on independent sequences and
  time bases
• HomeRF MAC ignores commands from foreign network
  IDs.

16
Advantage and Disadvantage of the three
technologies Bluetooth

• Disadvantage of Bluetooth
• Low bandwidth
• Interference
• Collides with HomeRF
• No Window XP support
• New technology, buggy, not much tools
• Current cost is high, 20
• Radiation

• Advantage of Bluetooth
• Ad hoc connection
• Better range than IR
• Low power consumption
• Connect through walls
• Omnidirectional
• Implemented by a large number of companies
• Voice and data transmission

17
Advantage and Disadvantage of the three
technologies HomeRF

• Disadvantage of HomeRF
• Collides with Bluetooth and IEEE 802.11b
• Competitors price coming down
• Multimedia and telephony application not on
  market
• Radiation

• Advantage of HomeRF
• Security
• Digital voice transmission
• Peer to peer and host/client connection
  simultaneously
• Interference immunity
• Dedicated Internet/multimedia support

18
Advantage and Disadvantage of the three
technologies IrDA

• Disadvantage of IrDA
• Line of sight only
• Device cannot move around while transmitting
• Point to point connection only
• Short distance

• Advantage of IrDA
• Cheap 2
• Compact, lightweight, low-power
• Intuitive and easy to use
• Noninterfering
• Best ad hoc, point and shoot
• Inherently more secure than RF

19
Application usage Bluetooth

• Cell phone and PDA Bluetooth
• Needs filled by Bluetooth
• Connect to multiple devices at the same time
• Unconsciousness synchronization
• Small, low energy consumption
• Current implementation
• Make Stylus into cell phone and keep PDA as base
• Able to walk around the room while on the
  phone(stylus)

20
Application usage Bluetooth

• Cell phone and PDA Bluetooth Cont.
• Application can be platform and hardware
  independent
• Bluetooth HCI (Host Control Interface) layer
  allows abstraction from hardware ie PCI card or
  USB adaptor
• Java/JINI allows abstraction from OS
• Bluetooth perfect for use in multiple devices
  connection on low bandwidth

21
Application usage IrDA

• E-Business cards IrDA
• Needs filled by IrDA
• More secure than RF
• Cheap
• Easy to use
• Interference free
• Current implementation
• Pint point who you want to share the business
  card with
• Able to exchange information fast and very ad
  hoc, point and click

22
Application usage IrDA

• IrDA perfect for use in close proximity simple
  connection.
• Calender, Address Book, Messages synchronizations

23
Application usage HomeRF

• Video conference HomeRF
• Needs filled by HomeRF
• Support multiple digital voice lines
• Transport voice and data simultaneously
• Secure, encrypted messages
• Higher interference resistance than Bluetooth
• Multimedia and Internet support
• Current implementation
• Perform video conference across the Internet with
  dedicated support for both voice and data
• Encrypt meeting with HomeRF security

24
Application usage HomeRF

• HomeRF perfect for use with multimedia devices.

25
Summary

• Bluetooth
• RF
• Portable one-to-many network
• Cell phone and PDA
• HomeRF
• RF
• Home and multimedia devices
• Video conference
• IrDA
• Infrared
• Portable one-to-one network
• Calendar, address book, E business cards