Bluetooth 2.2 to leverage WLAn and UWB

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21 January 2009 News

Information from IMS Research

The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) will release Bluetooth version 2.2, a new specification of the Bluetooth standard, in mid-2009. This new release will include a specification for High Speed Bluetooth, allowing for Bluetooth-enabled devices to transfer data at greatly increased speeds and giving Bluetooth-enabled handsets many compelling applications beyond voice transmission to a headset.

The High Speed Bluetooth specification will utilise Bluetooth technology in conjunction with either WLAN or UWB for improved data rates, and the two technologies will be marketed as Bluetooth 10x and Bluetooth 100x respectively, nomenclature that refers to the respective data rates of the technologies. This new standard will allow mobile handset users to utilise the pairing and interoperability advantages of Bluetooth technology and the increased throughputs of WLAN or UWB for wireless video streaming to computers or set-top boxes, wireless printing, and wireless peer to peer content movement, among other applications.

Of course, to utilise this new technology, mobile handsets will need to be equipped with a WLAN or UWB radio. According to IMS Research analyst Chris Schreck, “In handsets, Bluetooth 10x will likely come to market first, with volume shipments starting in 2010. Because WLAN already has an established presence in handsets, and because it has a proven use case, we have seen most handset OEMs express an interest in utilising the 10x version, at least initially. Furthermore, the device environment for WLAN is much more developed than the UWB environment, so handset OEMs may be waiting until there are a greater number of UWB-enabled devices before including UWB in a handset.”

However, IMS Research projects penetration of both WLAN and UWB in handsets to grow over the next five years, making significant adoption of High Speed Bluetooth in handsets a very plausible development over that time period.

For more information visit www.imsresearch.com

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Bluetooth 2.2 to leverage WLAn and UWB

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