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To: uthabros who wrote (70411)	4/11/2000 7:48:00 PM
From: Kok Chen	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 152472

uthabros wrote: Do you know of anyone who might now or in the future have a faster transfer rate and range than Bluetooth, at this point, to make sending pics to your home computer from your digital camera a normal happening? Right at the moment, I know of only two existing, related solutions, with better transfer rate and range than Bluetooth. They are both based upon the IEEE 802.11b standard, and use the same 2.4 GHz ISM band as Bluetooth. The first is the DSSS 802.11b based on Lucent's WaveLAN (name recently changed to Orinoco). Various manufacturers such as Lucent, Nokia (oops, taboo word on this thread :-) and Apple sell products that are based on this. Typical range (using PC Cards with built-in patch antennas, or in the case of Apple, antennas embedded into the fold up displays of PowerBooks and iBooks) is of the order of 150 metres. However, with dedicated stations and base antennas, and maxing out on what the FCC permits on the ISM band (36 dBi EIRP), you can do over 10 km over a clear (no other interfering devices) line-of- sight path. Depending upon SNR and all that, these devices max out at 11 Mbits/sec. Because of the speed, many home computer users , myself included, have stopped using Ethernet to interconnect between rooms. The second class of existing (i.e., you can buy them today) devices is the FHSS version, also based on IEEE 802.11b. These are currently deployed in many cities as a substitute for DSL. Their range is similar to the DSSS cousins. The data rate is typically advertised as "from 128 kb/s, bursting to T1 or better." So, strictly speaking, in the present form they are only a little faster than Bluetooth, however, their range is similar to their DSSS cousin. BreezeCom is one company that focuses in building equipment for this area. For the penultimate solution, although I have never seen it in real life, Canon had some press releases on what they call the "FireWireless" connection. This is based on the IEEE-1394 (Sony calls it iLink, Apple calls it FireWire) standard, but is wireless! Thus, they will provide 200 Mbits/sec and up in transfer speeds. The wired version is in use in many of the current crop of digital video cameras, but I have not yet seen a product that has "FireWireless" yet. My impression from reading the Canon blurb was that the range is similar to the objectives of Bluetooth. Side note: my believe is that it won't be long before the 2.4 GHz ISM band is completely congested, and the FCC would have to open up more free bandwidths. In addition to the 802.11b stuff, the ISM band is also being used by the newer model spread-spectrum cordless phones and some microwave ovens. And heaven help us if some naive user on an airliner turns on the Bluetooth wireless mouse on his laptop computer! Cheers, Kok Chen