 Wireless networking doesn't always mean 802.11b or g a growing
number of devices are Bluetooth enabled and the mobile communication
market has taken the standard on board
wholeheartedly. Mobile phones, headsets and PDA's are able to connect
over relatively short distances (typically 10 meters) but this is
ideal for home networking
and with a speed of 1mbit/s data interchange is twice the speed of
your average ADSL connection.
However Bluetooth Piconet's are not normally joined to a wireless
LAN
which reduces the benefit of both networks, after all being able to
connect your phone's to a network
of PC's would bring benefits of voice / text gateways from any
networked device and Bluetooth is ideally suited to connecting
headsets to PC's, even printers can be connected
to Bluetooth and a number are Bluetooth ready when shipped.
With this in mind Belkin have produced a Bluetooth access point,
this gives the same feature set as a Wifi access point but allows
the bridging of a piconet with your wireless and fixed LAN.
The Belkin Bluetooth Access Point will support up to 8 networked
devices which are each "paired" with the access point, this is
achieved through the web browser based GUI and administration portal
here the 128bit encryption can be enabled and pass codes entered to
facilitate pairing, after the process is complete all devices can
see the access point. The access point is in fact a class one
Bluetooth device which will support up to 100 meters of Bluetooth
transmission but in reality many of the devices you will connect
will use the lower class 2 (10 meter) standard, it also has a USB
connection and a 100baseT Ethernet connection for bridging to your
LAN.The access point also runs its own DHCP pool so it can
allocated MAC address to devices , it is possible to manage this
through the administration GUI but there is rarely the need.
Bluetooth is a more than adequate bearer for your ADSL link, using
the Belkin Bluetooth access point your can share your ADSL
connection with connected Bluetooth devices, this is a good way to
connect a PDA to the web or even a smartphone. The Belkin also comes
with an inbuilt print server which allows you to send print jobs
from any networked device via the USB port to your printer. This
works but can be a little fiddly to setup and things like killing
print jobs in the queue are next to impossible we had a suspicion
that this may be linked to Belkin print server fighting the Epsom
software on our main machine, but were unable to prove this in the
short time we had the unit.
The Belkin Bluetooth Access point offers a way to bridge Wifi
and Bluetooth networks at a budget price (£90) the print server is a
nice extra if it works for you and the added range of a class 1
device will get you through a few more walls in the house. Our brief
time with the Belkin proved a challenge with lots of head scratching
but once it worked it worked well and we could see just how useful
it could be, we guess its a good job that Belkin tech support is one
of the better services in the UK.
Overall this is a Bluetooth Access Point with a lot going for it,
that is if you are prepared for the fight to get it working.
More Networking Products -
[ Belkin Bluetooth USB Dongle ] [ Linksys wireless pci card WPC54G ] [ Netgear ADSL Wireless Router ] [ Linksys Wireless G Broadband Router ] [ TDK Bluetooth Plus PCMCIA Card ] [ Netgear WGT634U Wireless Media Router ] [ Netgear WG121 USB Wireless Adaptor ] [ Linksys WVC54G ] [ Netgear WG111 Wireless USB ] [ Netgear WG511T 108mbps wifi card ] [ Netgear HDX101 Review ] [ Solwise Homeplug Ethernet Over Mains ] [ Linksys WUSBF54G WiFi Finder ] [ BT Voyager 2000 Wireless ADSL Modem ] [ Linksys WAG54GX2 ] [ Belkin Bluetooth Access Point ] [ Logitech MX3100 ] [ Zoom 4300 Bluetooth Modem ] [ Belkin Bluetooth PCMCIA Card ] [ Buffalo Broadband Wireless Router ]
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