Bluetooth is one of the new technologies that has been developed to cope with the enormous growth that is taking place in the field of wireless communications.

Bluetooth is a world wide  wireless connection standard for  both data and voice communications that  eliminates the need for wires and cables between equipment such as printers , fax machines , laptops etc in fact any kind of equipment .  

The technology is named after the King of Denmark and Norway between 940 and 981 AD; his name was Harald Blatand (Harold Bluetooth in English). He helped unite his part of the world; in the same way that the developers and promoters of Bluetooth hope this technology will unite the mobile and IT worlds.

The idea that resulted in Bluetooth wireless technology was born in 1994 at Ericsson, Sweden when their Mobile Communications Unit decided to investigate the feasibility of a low power, low cost radio interface between mobile phones and their accessories.

SIG

In February, 1998 the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) was formed and now comprises all the major Telecom/Computer companies. As well as Ericsson, members include Microsoft, Nokia, Motorola, 3Com, Intel, Toshiba,  Lucent, IBM and  thousands of Adapter/Associate companies.

The SIG meets on a regular basis to discuss and monitor the latest developments that relate to Bluetooth products. Standardization and harmonization of an open global Bluetooth standard, frequency requirements and interoperability among different manufacturers are some of the main tasks of SIG.

Basic Operation

Bluetooth relies on the transmission of low power radio frequency in the range of 2.4 GHz to transfer data between a maximum of 8 devices located within in a diameter of 10 meters, at  speeds of between 723 Kbps to 1 Mbps. It is expected that these speeds will increase in the future.

Typical devices that can be connected through a Bluetooth network are computers, mobile handsets/headsets, PDAs, digital cameras, printers and any other electronic devices that utilize wireless exchange of voice and data.

Every Bluetooth-enabled device will operate with one or more profiles. Such profiles include headset, fax, dial-up, ftp, serial port and intercom.

As its popularity spreads, it is estimated that there will be around 362 million Bluetooth- enabled products by 2004.