2004: The year of bluetooth Now there's evidence....

2004: The year of bluetooth Now there's evidence, not just promises

Link to Article

2004: The year of bluetooth Now there's evidence, not just promises
By Jon Fortt
Mercury News

Mike McCamon is clearly frustrated, but he's doing well at holding it together. He is Mr. Bluetooth.

That's Bluetooth, the wireless technology. You might have heard of it -- the cable replacement miracle that was supposed to clear the clutter around your personal computer, banish the annoying wire from your cell phone headset and ``cure the common cold,'' as McCamon wryly puts it.

McCamon is executive director of the Bluetooth Special Interest Group, an outfit based in Kansas whose mission is to perfect and promote the technical standard. He is wise not to make promises. Like most everything else technology-related, Bluetooth got over-hyped during the late '90s -- Bluetooth boosters from companies long bankrupt kept promising it would be everywhere ``next year.''

``Next year'' finally will arrive in the United States in 2004 based on evidence at the Bluetooth Americas event in San Jose last week and talk from companies that manufacture wireless chips, bolstered by wireless keyboards, mice and printers in the personal computer world. In Europe, Bluetooth-enabled cell phones are emerging as digital hubs in place of the PC.

But McCamon won't make the leap to say Bluetooth has arrived. So many boosters have been wrong before.

``I don't like hyping stuff,'' McCamon says. ``I'm a Midwest kind of guy.''

Others in the industry are more willing. Says Scott Bibaud, a marketing director for the Bluetooth chip-making unit at Broadcom: ``This year, the volumes are good enough that we were happy. In 2004, we think the volumes are going to be really, really high.'' Still, past predictions haunt him. ``I hesitate to say next year is the big year for Bluetooth, because I have been quoted in years past saying it would be a Blue Christmas in 2002.''

Some forces still are holding back Bluetooth, particularly in the United States. Verizon and Sprint, the two major carriers whose cellular networks are based on CDMA wireless technology, have largely shunned Bluetooth. Rivals Cingular, AT&T Wireless and T-Mobile have embraced it.

Besides being tough to forecast, Bluetooth is a complex concept to describe, which many in the technology industry say is a big part of the problem. At the most basic level, Bluetooth wirelessly connects one electronic device to others in the same room -- say, a printer to a PC, or a headset to a cell phone. And the items don't even need to be in clear sight of one another.

The connections happen at a low speed similar to USB 1.0, which is fast enough to send digital music or speech from one device to another, but too slow to send full-motion video. But with this low speed comes Bluetooth's advantage over WiFi, the choice technology for wirelessly sharing Internet connections. Bluetooth uses very little power, making it the ideal connection technology for items such as tiny cell phone headsets that can't hold a big battery, or wireless mice and keyboards.

Power guzzler

Companies could put WiFi into those items, but it would be silly; WiFi guzzles so much power that the ``wireless'' mouse and keyboard would need to be plugged into the wall every few hours.

Bluetooth could indeed clear the tangled jungle that lives under your home PC and stretches over to the scanner, the digital camera, the PDA. Maverick Apple Computer, known for doing the cool things first, now offers Bluetooth in all of its PowerBook professional notebooks, and as a built-in option in its iMacs and Power Macs. Rivals in the PC industry are preparing similar products for release by late 2004.

There is a lot Bluetooth could do. Eliminating the need to shop for another $20 cable each time you buy a printer might be enough on its own. But the technology is tragically weakened by its scarcity because Bluetooth devices only become useful when they encounter another like them. Both ends of the connection must be Bluetooth equipped.

The case is growing stronger though, because there is convincing evidence of Bluetooth's imminent arrival:

• Several BMWs, the Toyota Prius, and a few other cars now come with Bluetooth as an option for hands-free cell phone use, alongside sunroof and CD changer.

• Fremont-based Logitech is selling a ``wireless hub'' for Windows PCs (www.logitech.com/bluetooth). It connects to Logitech's Bluetooth-enabled optical mouse, keyboard, headset, and most any other Bluetooth device, including phones from Nokia and Sony Ericsson.

• Headset maker Plantronics, which already has a Bluetooth model on the market, said it will increase its Bluetooth research budget by 25 percent in 2004. Taiwanese manufacturers have begun claiming they can supply core Bluetooth headset technology for $14.50 each, which suggests $29 headsets could arrive in Europe as soon as 2004.

• Infinite Range, a Fremont-based company, has begun marketing circuit boards that iPod accessory maker XtremeMac plans to build into a new product in 2004. The product uses Bluetooth to beam music from Apple's iPod to nearby audio systems without the fuzzy interference that comes with FM tuners.

• This fall, devices carrying Bluetooth technology began shipping at a rate of 1 million a week, which is impressive despite the fact that seven out of 10 of those devices are cell phones. In 2004, Bibaud, the Broadcom marketing executive, expects between 130 million and 140 million Bluetooth devices will ship.

Americans wondering where all those cool new Bluetooth devices are going need only gaze across an ocean. Roughly 65 percent are sold in Europe, 25 percent in Asia, and a paltry 10 percent in the United States.

Why is the United States so far behind? For starters, the country's largest cell phone maker and its largest wireless provider, Motorola and Verizon, both decided to put Bluetooth on the back burner. Though it has dabbled in Bluetooth, Motorola has not rolled out a product line, though a company representative at Bluetooth Americas said in 2004 Motorola will be ready to jump in. (European rival Nokia, which has beaten Motorola to market lately on camera phones, already ships 18 phones with Bluetooth enabled, and it plans more in 2004.)

Pressure ahead

Verizon and Sprint, whose cell phone also is based on CDMA technology, are both likely to start feeling more pressure to include a Bluetooth handset in their phone lineups. Up to this point, both companies have seemed to regard Bluetooth as a competitor to the PC cards it markets for bringing Internet access to laptops -- and neither company has suggested that its view is changing.

``The Trojan horse that's going to solve the problem is the car industry,'' McCamon says. He says he has heard from frustrated owners of Bluetooth-equipped cars who have Verizon and Sprint service and wonder why those carriers don't have phones that can talk to the car. He enjoys directing those customers to vent their frustration to Verizon and Sprint themselves.