Question

What are the differences between WLAN (802.11) and Bluetooth BR/EDR (802.15.1) in terms of network architecture, medium access control and QoS guarantee?

Answer 1

Hello,

WLAN (802.11) is a wireless technology which uses radio frequency to connect the computers in the set radius. Where the LAN used cables, WLAN updates the technology with wireless connection with IEEE standard 802.11. The connected systems can move around freely, and also new systems can be added or removed easily from the WLAN . It is generally used to wireless connect the computers, printers or smartphones in office and home.

WLAN architecture includes :

• Station : Set of all the WLAN connected devices
• Basic Service set : stations which are connected at physical level
• Extended Service set : Set of BSS
• Distributing Sustem : set of all points of ESS

Bluetooth BR/EDR (802.15.1)

Bluetooth is a low power radio frequency which implements wireless technology. BR/EDR is Basic Rate/Enhanced Data Rate. Bluetooth can fulfill  the requirements in short range (100 meters ) mostly for personal use with IEEE standard 802.25.1. It is a point to point network topology, with frequency band of 2.4GHz ISM band.

Bluetooth has a protocol stack as :

• Radio : Deals with physical channels as - inquiry scan, page scan, basic and adapter piconet .
• Baseband : Handles packets and create link between sender and receiver.
• LMP : Link Manager Protocol
• HCI : Host Controller Interface
• L2CAP : Provides services time upper protocol
• RFCOMM: Simple transport protocol
• SDP: session description protocol
• Application Profiles .

IEEE 802.11 is the first WLAN standard created by IEEE but as it turned out to be very slow, they developed the new standard IEEE 802.11 which has higher bandwidth but also uses higher power consumption than IEEE 802.15.4