Bluetooth the Future

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Bluetooth: The Future?

Introduction

Bluetooth has nothing to do with the Tooth Fairy, nor has it something to do with a bluecolored tooth. Bluetooth was the name given to a radical technology in wirelesscommunication which allowed automatic interconnectivity between diverse types offixed and mobile electronic devices sans the ubiquitous data transfer wire betweenthem.

The word Bluetooth is the anglicized version or English translation of Old Norse Bltnnor Danish Bltand, the name of the 10th century Vikingnot Hagar the HorribleandDanish King Harald I Bltand, (Harald Bluetooth in English), the son of King Gorm the

Old, who united albeit briefly, the warring tribes in what is now Denmark, Norway andparts of Sweden under his kingship. King Harald Bluetooth Gormson was known thenfor his diplomatic skills in getting people to talk to each other, which led to the unificationof the Scandinavian nations under a unitary rule and the Christianization of theScandinavian people as well (Harald I of Denmark, 2009). Thus the name Bluetoothwas symbolical for unity and the ideal name for the wireless technology which broughttogetherrather than hordes of Viking maraudersthe different communicationprotocols in the digital industry into one universal standard.

The Bluetooth logo is a Nordic bind rune merging the Germanic runes for King Harald

Bltands initials, H and B. Thus, (Hagall) and (Berkanan) became (Bluetooth,

2009b).

Figure 1: Bluetooth Logo and Trademark

The Bluetooth specification was developed in Lund, Sweden in 1994 by Jaap Haartsenand Sven Mattisson, who were assigned by mobile telephones manufacturer Ericsson,to investigate the feasibility of a low-power, low-cost radio interface between mobilephones vis--vis other electronic devices without the need to use the cumbersomeRS232 data cable to connect the two devices (Bluetooth, 2009b).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bluetooth.svghttp://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/18/Bluetooth-logo.svghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Runic_letter_berkanan.svghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:H-rune.gif


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Finally in 1998, Ericsson assembled a consortium to bring to the consumer the newlydeveloped wireless technology, oversee the further development of Bluetoothstandards, and grant licensing rights of the Bluetooth technologies and trademarks tomanufacturers. This consortium of telecommunication, computing, networking andconsumer electronics companies was known as the Bluetooth SIG (Special Interest

Group) whose original five members were leading giants of the electronic industry:Ericsson, Lenovo (Ex-IBM), Intel, Nokia and Toshiba. By yearend, 3Com, Lucent,Microsoft and Motorola were added as new members and together with the fivefounding members, they composed the Promoter Group. Currently, there are 12,335members and growing, but 3Com and Lucent were no longer members of the PromoterGroup (Bluetooth SIG, 2009b, 2009d).

The following year, Bluetooth 1.0 specifications was released to the market. Today,more than 2 billion Bluetooth enabled electronic devices have been shipped worldwide.

Description

Any system that we use todaycomputer, network, GPS, telephone, entertainmentismade up of various electronic components which are often made by differentmanufacturers. The practice then was for manufacturers to build their electronic devicesor machines from the bottom up, until it was found out that it is more efficient and cost-effective to just specialize on one or a few product components, depending on thecompanys available resources. Thus, it is possible to come up with something with justa plan and specifications. Just shop around for components that fits the specifications,assemble everything according to plan, and voila, a new electronic product is bornready for branding.

But it is not easy as it sound. The more complex the electronic product gets, the morecomplex will be the problem on how to make the various parts and pieces of the systemcommunicate with each other. The problem is compounded if the device needs tocommunicate as well with other electronic devices of different make. In order for them totalk to each other, a gamut of wires, cables, plugs, ports, connectors, radio signals,microwave or infrared light beams, software and protocols may be needed.

In the beginning, physical wires and cables are used accompanied by plugs, ports andconnectors. Soon, this method went out of fashion for who would want to trip on wiresand cables snaking around your space? The introduction of Wi-Fi radio signals(Officially, Wi-Fi does not mean anything, but Wireless Fidelityhas often been used in

an informal way. It is also known as 802.11 networking.) and IrDA (Infrared Dataassociation) infrared signals did not solve the interconnectivity issue (Bluetooth, 2009c).Enter Bluetooth and the world of electronic devices became one standard protocol.

But how do devices communicate?

Franklin and Layton (2009) said that before two devices can talk to each other, theremust be an agreement on a number of points. The first point of agreement is physical:


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Will they talk over wires, cables, or through some form of wireless signals such as radioand infrared? If they use wires, how many are required? If they use cables, what type?If radio or infrared, what frequency?

The second point of agreement is on the external connection or port since this

determines how much data will be sent at a time. There are three types of ports: serial,parallel, and USB (universal serial bus). At 1 bit at a time, serial ports transfer data to aneternal crawl. Parallel ports transfer multiple bits of data at a time. The USB portconnects multiple kinds of devices (127 peripherals can be connected to a single USBport). It is also a very fast means of transferring data with USB 2.0 having a datatransfer rate of 480 million bits per second.

The third point of agreement is the set of commands and responses known as protocolby which devices can understand and check the accuracy of each others transmission.The rule is simple: two devices connected using different protocols equals nocommunication since each others signal will sound gibberish when interpreted by one

another.

Bluetooth offers a solution to the problem by taking small area networking to the nextlevel. It is essentially a wireless networking standard that works at the physical (radiofrequency) and protocol level (data exchange agreement) (Bluetooth 2009b, 2009c,2009d). It automated networking thereby eliminating the need for user intervention. It isan extremely low power type of transmission to save on battery power. Besides being apower miser, it is also inexpensive to implement. These are the endearing qualities ofBluetooth which makes it a popular standard for electronic devices.

There are other ways to get rid of the cables and wires such as infrared communication.

Infrared (IR) means below red. Red is the color of the longest wavelengths of visiblelight. Since infrared operates at a lower frequency, we cannot see it because the humaneye cannot receive and interpret light at that wavelength. The most common use ofinfrared is in appliances remote control. Infrared is inexpensive to build into a deviceand is fairly reliable. It has two drawbacks which ironically is also advantageous in someregards (Bluetooth, 2009c).

Firstly, infrared is a line of sight technology which means that the remote control mustbe pointed at the appliances to make things happen. However, because the infraredreceiver and transmitter have to be lined up with each other, there is no interferenceunless there is something physically blocking the signal (Bluetooth, 2009c).

Secondly, infrared is a one on one technology which means the relationship is peer-to-peer. Only one device can communicate with another device at any given time; there isno third party. Yet, this is a useful security feature since the user is assured that only theintended recipient of the message gets it alone even if there are other infrared receiversaround (Bluetooth, 2009c).

But how does Bluetooth operates?


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Bluetooth networking operates at a low-power radio frequency band allocated byinternational agreement for industrial, scientific and medical (ISM) use other thancommunication. Communication devices using the license-free ISM bands must tolerateany interference from other ISM equipment such as common household devices. Thisfrequency band is between 2.4 GHz and 2.4835 GHz (Bluetooth, 2009a, 2009c, 2009d).

To avoid interference, Bluetooth sends out very weak signals of about 1 mW, which isless powerful than that of a mobile phone which uses about 3 mW. Thus, the range of aBluetooth device shrinks to a radius of only about 10 metres due to low power, therebycutting the possibility of interference between devices. Because Bluetooth uses radiosignal, the walls in your house will not stop the signal enabling you to control devices inthe next room without physically being there (Bluetooth, 2009c).

Bluetooth can automatically form a network called piconet within the confines of 10metres (32 feet) radius. A piconet is an ad hoc wireless personal area network (WPAN)of 2 to 8 Bluetooth devices; one of which will act as the master while the rest as slaves.

Larger networks called scatternet can be made by attaching one node of a piconet to anode of another piconet (Bluetooth, 2009c).

Figure 2: Master-Slave Relationship in Bluetooth Network


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Figure 3: Bluetooth Ad Hoc Topology

(Source: Guide to Bluetooth Security: Recommendations of the National Institute of Standards andTechnology at http://csrc.nist.gov)

Figure 4: Bluetooth Networks (Multiple Scatternets)

(Source: Guide to Bluetooth Security: Recommendations of the National Institute of Standards andTechnology at http://csrc.nist.gov)


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Blasdel (2004 p.9-0) and Franklin and Layton (2009) said that interference betweendevices within the net is avoided because Bluetooth uses a radio technology called thefrequency-hopping spread spectrum. In this technology, the ISM frequency band is

divided into 79 channels of 1 MHz wide each. Each of the channels is then divided intotime slots of 625 microseconds, thus making 1,600 different slots per second. It isthrough these channels and slots that Bluetooth transmits its data.

Simply stated, Bluetooth chops up the data being sent into packets and transmit thesepackets on up to 79 frequencies; the frequency is changed randomly 1,600 times persecond across the ISM frequency band.

Each piconet hops or changes its frequency of operation randomly thousands of timesa second. So all of the piconets are independent of each other and the chance of atransmission collision is rare to nil. If one did happen, its effect will be negligible since

any interference on a particular frequency will last only an iota of a second. A built-insoftware in the system will correct such errors if it can, or discard the confusing data,and the network resumes its business. The beauty of the system is that everything isautomatic and the system maintains itself.

Security is a primary concern in all wireless networks. Networks using radio frequency isa big challenge to secure.

So how does Bluetooth secure its transmission?

One of the major drawbacks of wireless technologies is their security. For wired or

cabled networks, you will have to actually tap on the physical line to get into the databits flow. With wireless networks, all you have to do is to be in the range of thetransmitting device for your receiver device to pick up the data bits flapping in thebreeze.

According to Blasdel (2004 p.20-21), security has four essential parts: authentication,data integrity, nonrepudiation, and confidentiality. Authentication is ensuring thegenuineness of the transmissions and messages, and their senders, as well as, theeligibility of the recipient to receive specific categories of information. Data integrity isensuring that data is intact or unchanged from its source and has not been altered inany way. Nonrepudiation ensures that evidence is available to the sender of the data

that the data sent has indeed been delivered and is verifiable through a third party.Finally, confidentiality is the assurance that the information will be read only byauthorized entities or intended parties.

Scarfone and Padgette (2008 p.7) said in a National Institute of Standards andtechnology (NIST) publication titled Guide to Bluetooth Security that, Bluetoothtechnology and associated devices are susceptible to general wireless networkingthreats, such as denial of service attacks, eavesdropping, man-in-the-middle attacks,


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message modification, and resource misappropriation. Meanwhile, Becker (2007) listedsome of the common attacks on Bluetooth as BlueSnarf, BlueSnarf++, BlueBug,BlueJacking, HeloMoto, BlueSmack, and cracking the Bluetooth PIN. BlueSnarfing andBlueJacking were the usual attacks of choice.

BlueSnarfing happens when a Bluetooth device connects to another Bluetooth devicewithout making the owner of the latter device be aware of the request. Thus, theintruding Bluetooth device can gain access to important personal information such asphonebook, business card, schedules, and most importantly, the unique InternationalMobile Industry identity which identifies the phone to the mobile network.

BlueJacking is a popular mechanism for exchanging anonymous albeit unwanted,messages in public places by taking advantage of the Bluetooth pairing protocol. This ispossible because the name of the initiating Bluetooth device is displayed on the targetdevice as part of the handshaking exchange. Because the protocol allows for a largeuser defined name field of up to 248 characters, the name field can be used to pass a

short innocent message to the other party. This may seem harmless but it may causeanxiety to the recipient.

In the early days of Bluetooth, mobile phone virus writers have taken advantage ofBluetooths automated connection process to send out infected files. There are nowfeatures to block that security hole. Only a sucker will bypass the security feature andreceive an unauthenticated message, opens the message and execute the virusprogram in it to mess his mobile phone.

Bluetooth offers several security features from which device manufacturers can choosefrom to include in the manufacture of their Bluetooth-enabled device. Usually, a

Bluetooth user can establish trusted devices that can automatically exchange datawithout asking permission. Any device not on the trusted list will not be able to establisha connection unless the Bluetooth user allows it. Hence, the authorization andauthentication procedure requires the device owner to make a conscious decision toopen a file or accept a data transfer.

A user can also simply switch the device to non-discoverable and the device willbecome invisible to the community of Bluetooth devices around. Moreover, once a linkkey has been generated during a pairing, an authenticated key link between the devicesmay be encrypted to protect the data that they exchange over the airwaves fromsnoopers.

Current State of Technology

When Bluetooth 1.0 and 1.0B was released in 1999, they have many problemsincluding interoperability issues. In a word, they sucked. The mediocre 1 Mbpsconnection was shared between data and voice. So essentially, what users really get isabout 700 Kbps transfer rateshardly a feat to be proud of. Moreover, you could onlytether to one device at a time (Bluetooth, 2009a, 2009b, 2009d).


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There was nothing exciting about. Bluetooth 1.1. It was just a bug fix for some of thesuckiness of Bluetooth 1.0 and 1.0B (Bluetooth, 2009a, 2009b, 2009d).

In 2003, Bluetooth 1.2 was released and things started to get really exciting. There weretwo major improvements. The Extended Synchronous Connections (eSCO) improved

voice quality by allowing retransmission of corrupted packets. So voice now soundsmore human and not as if you are talking through a high-speed cement mixer. The otherone is the addition of Adaptive Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum (AFH) to makeBluetooth devices resist and survive the constant 2.4 GHz background bombardment.Bluetooth SIG showed maturity when they made this release and other future releasesbackward-compatible (Bluetooth, 2009a, 2009b, 2009d).

On 10 November 2004, Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR (Enhanced Data Rate) was ratified. EDRis an optional feature, but when adopted, the data transfer rate was boosted to 2.1Mbps. The power consumption was cut in half through a reduced duty cycle. Theprovision of additional bandwidth reduced the complexity of multiple simultaneous

connections. The iPhone, HTC Touch Pro and T-Mobiles Android G1 were fineexamples of 2.0 + EDR applications. And yes, it is backward compatible with theprevious version, Bluetooth 1.2 (Bluetooth, 2009a, 2009b, 2009d).


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Figure 5: Bluetooth mobile phone headset, wireless PC card, and dongle

(Sources: Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia at and How Bluetooth Works at)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:BluetoothUSB.jpghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bluetooth_headset.jpg


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Next come Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR on 26 July 2007. It offered a maximum data transferspeed of around 3 Mbps. Power consumption is reduced when devices are in the snifflow-power mode. Better filtering of devices before connection is made possible through

Extended Inquiry Response (EIR), which provides more information during the inquiryprocess. Pairing also becomes simpler and more secured through Simple SecurePairing (SSP). It supports Near Field Communication (NFC) for magic-like automaticpairing (Bluetooth, 2009a, 2009b, 2009d).

On April 21 2009, the much awaited Bluetooth Core Specification Version 3.0 HighSpeed (HS) was formally adopted. There was a bit of frustration because the UWB(ultra wide-band) was missing, and a lot of fanfare as well because Wi-Fi saved the day.The newest Bluetooth mutation boasts a lot of data transfer speed of up to 24 Mbps.Bluetooth managed this feat by piggybacking on good old 802.11n Wi-Fi radio. So tworadios were used: the fast Wi-Fi when it comes to data deluge like in bulk download of

photos to a printer or sending video files from camera to computer, and to avoid anoverkill, the low intensity and boring Bluetooth radio for the ho-hum jobs like profiles andwhatnot. So the fast-slow radio tandem is very power efficient. A lot of power is usedonly when you need to. Besides, the Enhanced Power Control makes sure power isused more smartly and efficiently (Bluetooth SIG, 2009a, 200b; Meyer, 2009).

Also, the Unicast Connectionless Data will make the devices more responsive, read asless lag. But hold your horses because you will not be seeing B-3-O live yet. Deviceswill have it in the next 9 to 12 months, which is not a long time to wait since we havewaited too long already. Chip manufacturers such as CSR, Broadcom, NordicSemiconductor, Texas Instruments, Atheros and Cambridge Silicon Radio have

finalized their chip designs for the new standard (Bluetooth, 2009c; Bluetooth SIG,2009a).

The last Bluetooth SIG revelation was the Bluetooth low energy technology that willenable devices to operate for up to a year on a single button battery. As of 12 June2007, Wibree, a digital radio technology designed for ultra low power consumption, isknown as Bluetooth ultra low power. In 2008, it was renamed Bluetooth low energy(Bluetooth, 2009c; Bluetooth SIG, 2009a).

Future developments

Way back in March 2006, the Bluetooth SIG announced that it plans to integrate thelow-power, high bandwidth, short-range ultra wide-band (UWB) radio technology withBluetooth to jack up the data transfer speed to the decent vicinity of 480 Mbps.

Unfortunately, the global financial crisis struck and several key companies have foldedthis year. The death blow was last March when WiMedia Alliance, the industry bodybacking up UWB turned belly up. The last word around was that WiMedia Alliance waspassing on the technical specifications of UWB to Bluetooth SIG, the Wireless USB


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Promoter Group and the USB Implementers Forum. Once the technology transfers,marketing and related administrative items are completed, WiMedia Alliance will ceaseto operate (Bluetooth SIG, 2009b).

Meyer (2009) said another angle to the issue why UWB was left out of Bluetooth 3.0

was due to technical problems. The Bluetooth-Wi-Fi coupled solution could prove to bean efficient interim solution while Bluetooth SIG considers pursuing the Bluetooth-UWBtandem in the future. All things considered, leaving out UWB was no big deal sinceUWB has a relatively small range anyways. Get away for a few metres and the datatransfer rate collapses. There are also other standards around that are as good or evenbetter than UWD, such as wireless HDTV or HDMI connections and Sonys TransferJet.TransferJet has a maximum transfer rate of 560 Mbps.

At the onset, the huge future of Bluetooth is clear. It has the potential to compete, if noteliminate other existing wireless technologies of the Wireless Personal Area Network(WPAN) type such as ZigBee and HomeRF, and the Wireless Local Area Network

(WLAN) type such as Wi-Fi (802.11 networking)at least not for the moment while theyare partnersand IrDA (Infrared Data association).

Bluetooths biggest advantages lies in its low-cost (the specifications are inexpensive tointegrate into electronic devices), low-power (only 1 mW of power is consumed for eachsignal transmission.), simplicity (its seamless integration into our daily life because of itsease of use and its automagic synchronization capability), facilitate both data and voicecommunication, wireless (eliminates wires and cables between fixed and mobiledevices), and ad hoc networking capability (piconet with a single or multi-slaveoperation or a scatternet operation).

The potential and current problems with Bluetooth are still interference (Bluetooth usesthe same ISM frequencies being used by other devices such as baby monitors, garagedoor openers, cordless phones, microwave ovens and other wireless technologies),relatively slow data transfer rate (currently with Bluetooth 3.0 at 480 Mbps), relativelyshort range (Bluetooth is power-class-dependent: Class 1 100 mW at ~100 m, Class 2

2.5 mW at ~10 m, and Class 3 1 mW at ~1 m. As the range increases, powerconsumption also increases), security (this is the bane of all wireless networks. Dataemitted through open transmission is very difficult to secure), and compatibility issuesbetween Bluetooth products.


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Table 1: Bluetooth Power-Class Table

Bluetooth SIG must also address the issue of audio/video quality in the future. Manyaudio/video streaming implementations of Bluetooth proves to be a disappointment, toinclude the newer A2DP technology.

Power will be a crucial part of the equation in the future because energy-efficient, low-cost devices will be the cool things to have in the next five years. Bluetooth has alreadya head start in low energy design.

A Bluetooth radio operates in the 2.4 MHz to 2.4835 MHz microwave radio frequency

range with maximum power output of 100 mW (Class 1), roughly at the same level asmobile phones. Medical studies have not yet proven that mobile phones electronicemissions are a health hazard. Until there is empirical evidence on the contrary,Bluetooth-enabled devices may be considered safe.

Conclusion

The future looks bright for Bluetooth. It has proven itself a technology that has grown ofage with valuable applications despite its drawbacks. A major factor to her success isthe financial backing, research and other investments of major companies in theelectronics industry developing Bluetooth products.

However, if other technologies to be developed will give more reliable compatibility,faster data transfer rate, quality video and audio output, and most importantly, thebacking of a major chip manufacturer like Intel, then Bluetooth will become irrelevantand fall to the wayside.

As an epilogue, Bluetooth the namesake, was killed in battle by his illegitimate son,Sweyn Forkbeard (refers to his pitchfork-style moustache which was fashionable at the


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FRANKLIN, C., and J. LAYTON. 2009. How Bluetooth Works [online], [Accessed: 08August 2009], Available from World Wide Web: .

HARALD I OF DENMARK. 2009. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia [online],[Accessed: 08 August 2009], Available from World Wide Web: .

MEYER, D. 2009. Bluetooth 3.0 released without ultrawideband. ZDNet.co.uk. CNETNetworks, Inc [online], [Accessed: 08 August 2009], Available from World Wide Web:.

SCARFONE, K. and J. PADGETTE. 2008. Guide to Bluetooth Security:Recommendations of the National Institute of Standards and Technology. NIST SpecialPublication 800-121, pp.1-43 [online], [Accessed: 08 August 2009], Available fromWorld Wide Web: .

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Bluetooth the Future