Word of the split comes as Bluetooth is gaining traction in its core market of cellular handsets and marshaling its forces for a next-generation specification that could deliver megabit data rates and multimedia capabilities. Several top consumer companies, including Matsushita, Philips, Sony, and Toshiba, have defined in a Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) working group a low-cost means for streaming audio to Bluetooth headsets with plans to roll out products in 2004.

At the same time, Microsoft Corp. and a group of unnamed OEMs are hammering out a different, PC-centric approach based on Internet Protocol over Bluetooth.

"We may see multiple standards," said J. Eric Janson, vice president of marketing for Cambridge Silicon Radio (CSR), Cambridge, England, one of the top Bluetooth chip suppliers. "I would sooner everyone go in one direction so we can optimize around that and take the cost out of it, but I'm not sure that's realistic at this point."

At the Bluetooth Americas conference in San Jose last week, consumer audio devices were seen as the next likely target for Bluetooth, for which some 75 million chipsets will ship this year, mostly for GSM phones in Europe and Asia.

In contrast to Microsoft's IP approach, the SIG's consumer audio/video working group has defined a mechanism for streaming audio over Bluetooth using the Real Time Protocol defined by the Internet Engineering Task Force.

"At this point there's a controversy as to whether IP is cost-effective for simple devices like headphones. So far we have not found a need for an IP address on such devices," said Tsuyoshi Okada, a staff engineer in the wireless group at Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd., Osaka, Japan.

Matsushita and other companies in the SIG's A/V working group are preparing MP3 players, headsets, and speakers using the current 723Kbit/s Bluetooth version 1.2 spec and an advanced audio distribution profile (A2DP) defined by the SIG in May. Some of the companies are talking with Microsoft to find ways to bridge the two efforts.

The isue for Microsoft is one of audio quality, particularly in an environment where there might be multiple Bluetooth devices. Wireless keyboards, mice, and other 2.4GHz devices could generate interference that could result in crackling speakers when PCs stream audio over Bluetooth. A2DP is essentially a point-to-point spec that doesn't take that scenario into account, said Mike Foley, a wireless architect at Microsoft.

"We're working with OEMs to come up with a solution. It's a very important issue," Foley said.

Microsoft elected not to ship native support for Bluetooth in Windows XP, though the company did ship in September an add-on pack with a Bluetooth application programming interface.

Going forward, the company has kicked off an effort to define an umbrella set of application programming interfaces as part of its Winsock framework. Under the framework, which probably will be built into the next generation of Windows known as Longhorn, the developers would write to Winsock and Windows would determine what services are passed over what networks.

In separate presentations at the conference, chip and software vendors indicated several challenges to delivering music over Bluetooth. Systems will need sub-band coding to efficiently move MP3, Windows Media, or other codec files in a simple way to a headset or speaker. Headsets, for example, should have 80 milliseconds or less latency to stay in sync with video from a TV.

CSR's Janson noted that vendors also will have to work out the issue of copyright protection for wireless music traveling between a device and a headset, another thorny issue.

The audio debate comes as the Bluetooth SIG is setting up a new roadmap committee to provide broad market input on directions and timing for the next revs of the short-range wireless link.

Several backers expressed optimism the core Bluetooth technology, which has been widely over-hyped, is finally starting to catch on. Nokia is launching 18 products using Bluetooth this year, 10% to 15% of Motorola's phones will be equipped with Bluetooth by the end of next year including at least one CDMA model, and IBM and Toshiba are increasing the number of their notebook PC models using Bluetooth, according to representatives of the companies here.

"We foresee shipping in excess of tens of millions of cell phones using Bluetooth in 2004," said Steve Deutscher, director of product management for phone peripherals at Motorola Inc. "A year ago, I would have said I don't know about the future of Bluetooth, but we are finally at the point now where we can see this getting into mass-market products."

IDC, Framingham, Mass., estimates that 29 million Bluetooth chips shipped in 2002, increasing to 637 million in 2007. By that time, as many as 65% of all cellular handsets, 44% of PDAs, and 36% of notebooks could have Bluetooth built in, according to IDC.

IDC also projects that the average selling price of Bluetooth chips will fall from $4.75 this year to $3.45 in 2004 and $2.30 in 2007. Based on price declines for chips and batteries, one headset manufacturer said it will ship by June a $59 Bluetooth headset, down from $99 today.

By: DocMemory
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