5.3 An introduction to competing technologies

Look again at Table 4. If I simply wanted to connect my computer and my mouse wirelessly, would I use WiFi? If I wanted to connect together six or seven laptop computers so that they could share information with each other in a face-to-face business meeting, would I use Bluetooth? On first analysis both technologies might offer possible solutions for either of these applications (though I suspect that the relatively slow data rate of a Bluetooth network would prove rather restricting in the business meeting). In practice though I wouldn't simply be thinking about the technical specifications such as operating range and throughput; I would need to consider a range of issues such as set-up, maintenance and power requirements, security, and issues related to reliability and usability. These issues are discussed next.