Performance evaluation of the Bluetooth-based public Internet access point

Bluetooth has been regarded as a promising solution to an inexpensive wireless connection. Although initial application of Bluetooth technology has been focused mainly on replacing cables between hand-held devices, general wireless telecommunication such as public Internet access via a Bluetooth-equipped device is expected to be one of the most popular applications in the near future. However, it is not well understood whether the performance of Bluetooth-based systems is sufficient for such an application. We present preliminary results of performance evaluation of a Bluetooth-based Internet access point. The evaluation is based on simulation of an Internet access model consisting of a Bluetooth-based network access point and a number of Bluetooth-equipped notebook computers. The simulation results indicate that Bluetooth provides performance comparable to the fastest dial-up modem even when a number of users share a single Bluetooth radio unit. Better performance is expected when more than one Bluetooth radio unit are employed such that each unit services different users concurrently. However, Bluetooth units in a single radio range (about 10 m) interferes with each other since the channels established by each unit occasionally collide at the same frequency band. This paper analyzes the impact of such interference based on an analytical model of inter-channel interference. The analysis shows that the performance improves as the number of channels increases up to 40. We expect the proposed inter-channel interference model is useful in the design of systems facilitating multiple Bluetooth units.