NETWORKING VIA BLUETOOTH IN LAPTOPS

Bluetooth is a form of automatic wireless connection that enables a laptop or other Bluetooth enabled devices to communicate with other computers, devices like mobile phones, digital cameras or laptops within that particular personal area network.
Founded in 1998, the Bluetooth Special Interest Group oversees the research and development of Bluetooth. The device is named after Herald Bluetooth, king of Denmark in the late 900s.

Some quick facts on Bluetooth:

• The range of Bluetooth is between one to hundred metres.

• Bluetooth can connect up to eight devices simultaneously. Imagine your laptop to be connected to your home desktop, your mobile phone, the home telephone, your printer and even your digital camera. This is networking.

• A Bluetooth dongle can be externally connected to your laptop through a USB port to enable it to connect to a Bluetooth enabled network.

• The Operating System of your laptop should also support Bluetooth. Otherwise you may require installing a Bluetooth drive.

• If your laptop is already Bluetooth enabled then all you need to do is press the Bluetooth button and your laptop will find out compatible devices within the range.

How does Bluetooth work?

Bluetooth networking uses radio waves to transmit data. It operates in a specific radio wave frequency that is set aside by international agreement for scientific, medical and industrial use. The technique used by Bluetooth to transmit data is called spread spectrum frequency hopping wherein it randomly selects 79 individual frequencies within the designated range to transmit.

So when a Bluetooth enabled laptop comes within the range of another Bluetooth enabled device, the two automatically communicate to establish a personal area network and then hop the frequencies in unison to stay connected.

Is Bluetooth connectivity secure enough?

Security is a big concern for any networking setup that is wireless. Bluetooth is thus very much susceptible to spying and unauthorised access. Generally security is ensured in both device level and service level. You can change your laptop settings in such a way that any Bluetooth enabled device that is not in your ‘trusted devices’ group would require authorisation and permission before transferring data.

However with each technological development come the associated pitfalls. Different companies are now engaging themselves on how to make Bluetooth networking more secure. The latest Bluetooth specification 2.1 offers an array of features to reduce the security concerns.

The most important security measure that you can take is to switch-on the Bluetooth of your laptop only when you need to transfer or receive data.



When do you need Bluetooth networking?

If you want to have networking in your laptop predominantly for the purpose of transferring or receiving data on a small scale and within a small personal area network, then you can go for a laptop using networking via Bluetooth. For example staying connected to your home network when you are at home or to the study group when you are in the college.

However if you want to stay connected to a bigger network, e.g. your office and require high-speed transfer of data, then only a Bluetooth will not fulfil your networking needs.

Latest Bluetooth enabled laptops:

These days most laptops and notebooks are Bluetooth enabled. The SZ series from Sony, Inspiron from Dell, MacBooks from Apple, Aspire series from Acer all come with Bluetooth 2.0 and above specification.