Bluetooth vs. Wi-Fi Technology

By Ronald Pacchiano

For the last 15 or so years I have been a loyal Windows user. As with many relationships, this one has not been without its occasional problems. Over the years I've lost count of how many times Windows caused a GPF (define) or simply crashed on me. Two weeks ago I was right in the middle of one of the biggest presentations of my career when Windows crashed. It was a nightmare. Worst yet, I couldn't even get back into the system. Thay was the final straw.

The very next day I went out and purchased my first Apple computer — a PowerBook G4 with a 12.1" display (Model # M9007LL/A). It's really cool looking and everything seems to be working pretty well. It's been a few weeks, and I've been very happy with it except for one thing that I hope you can assist me with.

Now this could just be my unfamiliarity with the Mac OS, but for some reason I can't seem to get the system online. It looks like the MAC's Bluetooth wireless adapter is not communicating with my D-Link DI-614+ wireless router. I've tried a number of things to get around this problem, like disabling WEP (define) and verifying that DHCP (define) has been enabled, but it hasn't helped.

I know my Internet connection and router are functioning properly because my two Windows machines can get online just fine. I've tried calling tech support a few times, but so far I haven't been able to get through to anyone. Is there anything you can tell me that might help rectify this situation?

Hopefully, you've gotten through to tech support by now, but if you haven't, I can tell you without question what your problem is. Simply put, I think you're under the impression that your Bluetooth wireless adapter is designed to perform the same job as the 802.11b adapter installed in your Windows PCs. It isn't.

Bluetooth wireless technology (define) is vastly different from 802.11b wireless local area network technology (define). Not only is it significantly slower than 802.11b products, but it's also completely incompatible with them. To better understand this, let's take a look at what Bluetooth technology is and what exactly it was designed to do.

Bluetooth is a telecommunications industry specification that describes how mobile phones, computers, and personal digital assistants can be easily interconnected using a short-range wireless connection. Bluetooth products achieve this by placing a small, inexpensive radio transmitter/receiver module in each electronic device. This module acts as the physical medium to connect these devices and also provides the necessary communication protocols needed for these devices to successfully transmit data.

For the user, there are three main benefits to using this technology. First of all, it's wireless, so when you travel you don't have to worry about carrying a multitude of connectors and attachments with you just to connect your peripherals. Next, it's very inexpensive, so it won't cost you an arm and a leg to take advantage of it. Finally, Bluetooth doesn't require you to do anything special to make it work. The devices find one another and strike up a conversation without any user input at all. This makes it ridiculously simple to connect previously complicated electronic devices.

For example, your computer connects to your keyboard through a dedicated keyboard port. Your mouse uses the PS2 port, your PDA the USB port, and if you had an older printer, it would need to be connected to your PC's parallel port. All of this means you not only need to know what ports to connect each of these devices to, you also need to know how to configure them.