Page 2 of 10

INTRODUCTION

The Bluetooth technology was developed to provide a wireless interconnect between small mobile devices and their peripherals. Target markets were the mobile computer, the mobile phone, small personal digital assistants and peripherals. These markets were represented by the companies who created the technology: Intel, 3COM, Ericsson, IBM, Motorola, Nokia, and Toshiba, and were further supported by the 1,600 other early adopter companies.

The goals of the technology did not include developing another Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) technology, for which there were already many in the market and many more being developed. Rather, whereas WLANs are designed to efficiently connect large groups of people over a common backbone, the Bluetooth technology was designed to connect mobile devices over a personal and private connection (in essence, to replace the cables carried by many mobile travelers).

The Bluetooth technology tries to emulate the cost, security, and capabilities of common cables carried by mobile travelers. The technology must be as secure as a cable (supports application/link-layer authorization, authentication, and encryption); must be manufactured for about the same cost as a cable (designed for eventual manufacture as a single-chip CMOS radio giving a long-term cost goal of $5 an end-point radio); must connect to a variety of devices available to the mobile user (seven simultaneous connections) and support data rates that are consistent with a mobile traveler's needs (1 Mega symbol per second data rates per piconet); must support many simultaneous and private connections (hundreds of private piconets within range of each other); must support the types of data used by mobile users (voice and data); and must be very low power and compact to support the small portable devices into which the technology will be integrated. Finally, the technology must be global as the mobile devices will travel and must work with devices found in other parts of the world.