AN EMPIRICAL STUDY OF BLUETOOTH PERFORMANCE

Guillermo A Francia III, Aditya Kilaru, Le Phuong, and Mehul Vashi

Wireless Networks Laboratory
Mathematics, Computing, and Information Sciences Department
Jacksonville State University
Jacksonville, Alabama
Email : gfrancia@jsucc.jsu.edu

ABSTRACT

The Bluetooth technology was developed with the ultimate goal of replacing
the conventional networking cable between devices. Since its inception in
1998, it has rapidly developed and adopted by influential technology
innovators and prominent corporations. Most notable deployment of Bluetooth
technology can be found in printers, digital cameras, cell phones, and
computers of various types. The purpose of this work is to perform an
empirical study of the performance of Bluetooth enabled networks. The
performance study is categorized into two main wireless network
configurations: a) pure Bluetooth networking environment, and b) wireless
network environment in which Bluetooth co-exist with 802.11. Analyses and
discussions on the results which were obtained from this study are provided
and future directions for the extension of this research are sketched out.

INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this study is to investigate the performance of Bluetooth enabled networks
through empirical methods. The study is divided into two main wireless network categorizations:
a) Pure Bluetooth network environment; and
b) A wireless network environment in which Bluetooth co-exist with 802.11.
We anticipate that the result of the study will a) provide an added insight on the design of
performance benchmarks for wireless networks, and b) stimulate the design and development of
wireless networking laboratory projects which emulate these empirical methods for hands-on
activities for students.

BLUETOOTH TECHNOLOGY
The special interest group for Bluetooth was formed in 1998 which included major
corporations such as Ericsson Mobile®, IBM®, Toshiba®, Intel®, and Nokia®. After the
Bluetooth version 1.0 specification was published in December 1999, the group added four major
companies: Microsoft®, 3Com®, Lucent®, and Motorola® [10].
The Bluetooth technology was developed with the ultimate goal of replacing the conventional
cable between devices. Tranter, et. al. described in [10] the most important requirements of
Bluetooth design. These are as follows:

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 v Size: The chip should be small in size, where it can be incorporated in compact mobile
devices easily.
v Battery operated: It should be able to operate on batteries without any changes.
v Low power consumption: As the devices are battery operated, it should consume
minimum power.
v Robust and simple: It should be as robust as cable connection or more--simple enough for
the users wherein no device configurations are necessary.
v Low cost: Bluetooth should cost no higher than a standard network cable.

Bluetooth Operation and Connectivity

Bluetooth operates on the unlicensed 2.4GHz ISM radio frequency (RF) band. The radio
modem employs medium-rate frequency hopping (160 hops/sec) to reduce the impact of jamming
other systems (wireless LANs, microwave ovens etc.) and to comply with emission rules. The
band is divided into 79-1MHz wide channels. Its radio channel is assumed to be a burst-error
channel without time dispersion. Such a burst-error channel is good in between error burst and
very bad during bursts. Thus, a combination of fast automatic retransmission query (ARQ)
scheme and simple coding is employed, to increase the link robustness. Further, the frequency
hopping used at the air interface also improves the jamming resistance [1].
The Bluetooth communication protocol assumes that one unit is acting as master, the calling
unit, and all other participating units are slaves. A master together with its slaves (up to seven
slaves are supported) form an ad hoc Piconet. A set of Bluetooth piconet is called a scatternet; the
piconets in a scatternet do not need to be integrated in anyway [10]. In a point-to-point
communication, the master and the slave send and receive alternately to provide a full duplex
transmission. In a point-to-multipoint situation, the master sends every other slot and the slaves
all share the alternate time slots. The Master is responsible for distributing the channel capacity
among the slaves and connections are formed by a direct call from the master to a slave [1].

Bluetooth Link Types

There are two link types available in Bluetooth, Synchronous Connection-Oriented (SCO) and
Asynchronous Connection-Less (ACL) links. SCO link is a symmetric dedicated link between
two devices; this dedicated channel is a circuit-switched connection whose target application is
voice. The ACL link, which is mostly dedicated to data transmission, is an asynchronous link that
uses those slots in a piconet that are not dedicated to an SCO link. In ACL links, a slave is limited
to transmitting to the master only in the slot directly following the slot where master addressed
this particular slave [10]. Broadcast messages to the whole piconet are possible by using the all-
zero device address in the packet header through ACL.

Bluetooth Link Management

Bluetooth devices use Link Management Protocol (LMP) to perform link management. The
LMP performs link configuration, including quality of service support, security and establishment
of the logical channels. There are two primary states of Bluetooth supported by LMP: Standby
and Connection. The standby state is the default power-up state. If a device issues inquiry
message and receives a reply, then that device enters the connection state as a master. On the
other hand, if a device receives an inquiry message and responds to it, then that device enters the
connection state as a slave. Besides stand-by and connection state, there are seven other interim

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states namely Page, Page Scan, Inquiry, Inquiry Scan, Master Response, Slave Response, and
Inquiry Response. Detailed descriptions of these states can be found in [10] and [11].

RELATED WORKS
Related Work on Bluetooth Performance
In [9], the results of an evaluation based on the simulation of an Internet access model
consisting of a Bluetooth–based network access point were presented. The results of this study
were encouraging as they show a Bluetooth-based access network gives performance significantly
better than the traditional dial-up connection.
The study presented in [12] evaluated the Segmentation and Reassembly (SAR) policies and
Medium Access Control (MAC) scheduling algorithms with a view towards enhancing the
performance of transport layer sessions. Two SAR policies: SAR-Best Fit (SAR-BF) and SAR-
Optimum Slot Utilization (OSU) were proposed with the aim of increasing link utilization and
decreasing end-to-end delay of data packets. The results indicated that SAR-OSU outperformed
SAR-BF in all respects, i.e., throughput, link utilization, and packet transmission delays.
The performance of two Bluetooth piconets linked through a shared device was analyzed
using a queuing theory model in [13]. Two topologies were analyzed: (a) the master/slave (MS)
bridge, in which the shared device is the master in one of the piconets and a slave in the other,
and (b) the slave/slave (SS) bridge, where the shared device is the slave in both piconets. Two
scheduling policies, limited service and exhaustive service, were considered. The results indicated
that the SS bridge offers lower access delays and local end-to-end delay than its MS counterpart.
All analytical results were confirmed through simulations.
The radio network performance of a set of Bluetooth data links in a single room scenario was
investigated in [14]. In this study, two different load cases were considered: fully loaded, which
consists of continuously transmitting piconets, and constant average traffic demand per user. In
the fully loaded case, the amount of interference is found to be in direct proportion to the number
of piconets. In the case of constant user traffic demand, the amount of interference is governed
both by the number of concurrent sessions and by the chosen packet type.

Related Work on Bluetooth and 802.11 Co-existence

Along with Bluetooth, there are several systems that operate over the ISM band, including
some versions of the IEEE 802.11 wireless networking standard. While Bluetooth is fairly robust,
effects of other devices within the range have the potential of causing a significant disturbance on
each other. Studies on the amount and effect of interference found in the 2.4 GHz band are
relatively recent. There have been several attempts at quantifying the impact of interference on
both the WLAN and Bluetooth performance. Published results can be classified into at least three
categories depending on whether they rely on analysis, simulation, or experimental measurements
[4]. Analytical results, which are based on probability of packet collision, give a first order
approximation on the impact of interference and the resulting performance degradation. The
studies often make assumptions concerning the traffic distributions and the operation of the media
access protocol, which make them less realistic. In this type of study, mutual interference that can
change the traffic distribution for each system is often ignored. Experimental results can be
considered more accurate but would be too specific to the implementation that is tested. A third
alternative, consisting of using modeling and simulation to evaluate the impact of interference,
provides a more flexible framework.

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 A simulation-based approach for evaluating performance of Bluetooth based systems was
presented in [2]. The paper argued that, in the absence of external interfering sources, aggregate
throughput is limited by self interference which depends upon:
(i) physical layer parameters like hopping rate, hopping sequences, transmitted power,
receiver sensitivity, modulation, and forward error correction;
(ii) channel characteristics like coherence bandwidth and coherence time; and
(iii) spatial characteristics.
Another simulation environment for modeling interference based on MAC model was
discussed in [3]. The study used several simulation scenarios and measured performance in terms
of packet loss, residual number of errors, and access delay. The results indicated that scenarios
using Bluetooth voice traffic may be the worst of all interference cases (65% of packet loss for
the WLAN 1 Mbits /s system). Also, it was noted that Bluetooth voice may be severely impacted
by interference with packet loss of ~ 8%. Moreover, the results suggested that the data rate in the
WLAN system may be a factor in the performance and that the recommended rate for WLAN
depends on the topology and the parameters that are involved.
The effect of mutual interference on the performance of Bluetooth and IEEE 802.11b systems
was evaluated in [4]. A simulation framework was developed for modeling interference based on
detailed MAC and PHY models. Conclusions drawn from this work were:
a) Increasing the WLAN transmission power to even fifty times the power of
Bluetooth is not sufficient to reduce the WLAN packet loss. On the other hand,
limiting the WLAN power may help avoid interference to Bluetooth.
b) Using a slower hop rate for Bluetooth (i.e. longer packet sizes) may cause less
interference to WLAN.
c) Bluetooth voice represents the worst type of interference for WLAN. In addition,
the WLAN performance seems to degrade as the Bluetooth offered load is
increased.
d) The use of error correcting block codes in the Bluetooth payload does not improve
performance. The errors caused by interference are often too many to correct.
Overall, the results were dependent on the traffic distribution. The complexity of the
interactions and the number of parameters to adjust make the optimization problem intractable,
but choosing an objective function is very dependent on the applications and the scenario.
The study conducted in [5] suggested that by developing appropriate traffic control
algorithms, interference, which exists among different radio systems operating in same
environment and sharing same frequency band, can be dramatically reduced. Furthermore, by
transmitting Bluetooth data traffic in a bursty manner, a 19% improvement was achieved at the
expense of an additional average delay in Bluetooth traffic equal to 10 ms and a 29%
improvement at 110 ms of additional average delay.
Solutions to the interference problem between 802.11 and Bluetooth which consist of power
control adjustments and scheduling policies were discussed in [6]. It was assumed that the source
of interference to the Bluetooth system is an 802.11 system operating in a direct sequence spread
spectrum (DSSS) mode. Two techniques were employed to achieve the goal. The first technique
involved controlling the transmitted power and keeping it proportional to the signal-to-
interference ratio (SIR) measured at the receiver. The second technique used the frequency
hopping sequence and scheduling to avoid interference. Performance is measured in terms of the
mean access delay, the probability of packet loss, and the transmitted power. The results that
were obtained showed that power control scheme may be useful and simple to use in some

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limited scenarios and thus cannot be considered a complete solution on its own. On the other
hand, the second technique which delays the transmission of Bluetooth data packet once
interference is detected can significantly lower the probability of packet loss for Bluetooth
without much increase in the mean access delay. The performance evaluation results obtained
from the Bluetooth ACL link were more promising.
A method developed for evaluating the impact of an 802.11b network on the Bluetooth
piconet performance was explained in [7]. A three step process was used in this development:
characterize the 802.11b interference in a stationary environment, characterize the Bluetooth
performance in the presence of a single 802.11b interferer, and characterize the Bluetooth
performance in an arbitrary 802.11b network environment. Empirical results were used to
develop and substantiate the analytical model. Based on this analysis, two general conclusions
were drawn:
1) For light 802.11b network activity, the Bluetooth piconet should not encounter any
significant performance impact over its operational coverage range given the path loss is
sufficiently large.
2) For moderate to heavy 802.11b network activity, it is likely that the Bluetooth piconet will
encounter a limitation of its communication range between piconet nodes. The degree to which
the range is limited is highly dependent on the path loss associated with the RF environment and
the application’s communication requirements.
The report presented in [8] showed results from a co-existence testbed that provides a detailed
view of the performance and the parameters that influence the co-existence. Furthermore,
supplementary approaches to support the co-existence are presented. In this test-bed the Bluetooth
units were placed at 2m distance around the 802.11 receiver. Two fully loaded Bluetooth piconets
(four BT units) at 2m distance or one half loaded BT piconet (one BT unit) at 0.5m distance
reduces the 802.11b throughput by only about 10%. Whether the BT units constantly transmitted
5-slots packet or 1-slot packet made no difference. From the above study it was concluded that
the Bluetooth performance with IEEE 802.11b depends on the length of the Bluetooth link, the
distance to the IEEE 802.11b interferer, the orientation of antennas, and the IEEE 802.11 activity.
Also, in the investigated interference scenario Bluetooth data (ACL) links rarely experience
serious degradations. Bluetooth voice (SCO) links are likely to suffer some audible degradation in
quality. With moderate number of fully loaded Bluetooth interferers, the throughput reduction of
IEEE 802.11 is moderate. Neither the interfering packet type nor the antenna polarizations had a
significant influence on the performance.

INTERFERENCE IN WIRELESS NETWORKS

The performance of Bluetooth, as well as other wireless technologies, is highly dependent
on the presence of interference. Wireless networks are more error prone than its counterpart--
the Ethernet (802.3). Unlike in 802.3, where the transmission occurs only in a well defined,
isolated medium, wireless signal has to compete in a hostile environment, where many other
devices are present. Major causes of signal loss or interference in wireless radio signal may
include, but not limited to, the following:
(a) Signal attenuation because of heat.
(b) Partner overloading because of the close proximity of two stations trying to
communicate with each other and consequently overwhelming each others
filter and produces substantial amount of noise.

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 (c) The presence of other radio waves in the air.
(d) Electromagnetic radiations bouncing off or diffracted from solid objects.
(e) The distance of between the two communicating entities.
(f) The obstructions through which the RF signal needs to pass through.

THE EMPIRICAL STUDY

This empirical study on the performance of Bluetooth enabled networks is divided into two
main categories:
c) Pure Bluetooth network environment; and
d) A wireless network environment in which Bluetooth co-exist with 802.11.
We anticipate that the results of the study will provide a foundation for the design of a
meaningful pedagogical laboratory experiments in wireless networks and for future
benchmarking parameters for wireless networks.

THE TEST METHODOLOGY

Measuring Pure Bluetooth Performance
The first test phase is performed using two Gateway® notebook computers
(Pentium™ 4 1.6GHz running Windows XP™ ), which are equipped with 3Com®
Bluetooth devices connected to USB ports. Due to the unavailability of a Bluetooth
development kit, we are forced to use the built-in file transfer utility provided by
3Com®’s Bluetooth Connection Manager. The file transfers are carried out using three
different file sizes: 1, 2, and 4 Mbytes, repeated four times each. The file transfer process
is automated by using Window Interface Language, a scripting language built in a
Windows batch processing application, WinBatch™. In order to determine the impact of
distance on the performance of Bluetooth devices, the process is repeated on four different
length of separation: 2, 4, 8, and 16 meters. This setup is shown in Figure 1.

Bluetooth Station 1 2, 4, 8, 16 meters Bluetooth Station

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Figure 1. The Pure Bluetooth Configuration

Measuring the Performance of Bluetooth with 802.11

The second phase of the testing process is performed to investigate the degree of
802.11 signal interference on Bluetooth transmissions. This is accomplished by adding
steady 802.11 transmissions in the presence of Bluetooth file transfers similar to that

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scenario described above. While Bluetooth transmissions are basically file transfers, the
802.11 transmissions are database transactions. A wireless station, which is configured to
communicate with an access point for database queries, is positioned in between the two
Bluetooth-enabled stations as depicted in Figure 2.
The co-existence of Bluetooth with 802.11 is further investigated by gathering
performance data on multiple wireless node configurations. In this section of the study,
the number of lost packets was tallied for each of the following setup: a) 802.11 ad-hoc
mode, b) 802.11 ad-hoc mode with Bluetooth, c) 802.11 infrastructure mode with
Bluetooth, d) 802.11 infrastructure mode and ad-hoc mode, and d) 802.11 infrastructure
mode, ad-hoc mode, and Bluetooth. In one or more of the network configurations, the
nodes in the ad-hoc mode and those that are Bluetooth-enabled performed file transfers
and the nodes in the 802.11 infrastructure mode performed database transactions.

802.11 Station

Bluetooth Station 2
Bluetooth Station 1

2 2, 4, 8, 16
meters meters

802.11 Access Point

Figure 2. Bluetooth coexisting with 802.11 Configuration

THE TEST RESULTS

The Pure Bluetooth Performance
The performance property that is measured by the empirical study is the data
throughput in bits/sec. The actual data rate is compared with the theoretical data rate to
yield the actual/theoretical ratio. In determining the theoretical rate, it is assumed that file
transfers use the ACL link and that the transfer packet type is Data-High 5 (DH5) with an
asymmetric aggregate transfer rate of 782 Kbits/sec.

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 The initial test results reveal data transfer rates that are significantly below the
theoretical rate. A quick analysis of the initial setup revealed that having the notebook
computers closer to the floor creates a high level of interference resulting from the
deflection of the RF signals from the floor back to the source. Thus, the positions of the
notebook computers are elevated to a point where experimental results started to yield
some reasonable numbers.
The results of the empirical study are shown in Figure 3. The chart indicates the
strong correlation of the error rate with the link distance of the Bluetooth enabled devices.

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Actual vs Theoretical Error Ratio

20

15

10

0
2 4 8 16
Distance in m eters

Figure 3. Pure Bluetooth Performance

The Performance of Bluetooth with 802.11
Figure 4 and 5 summarize the performance data that were gathered on the
Bluetooth-enabled devices when co-mingled with 802.11 nodes.

50

45
Actual vs Theoretical Error Ratio

40

35

30

25

20

15

10

0
2 4 8 16
Distance in m eters

Figure 4. Bluetooth Performance with 802.11

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 In Figure 4, the data indicate the inverse proportion of the error rate with the link
distance. This phenomenon not only suggests the strong interference of 802.11 RF signal
interference on Bluetooth but also validates the notion that a close proximity of RF
generating devices hampers their transmission capability.
Figure 5 depicts the results gathered from a multitude of wireless device
configurations. In this experiment, several interesting results became apparent. Foremost
among these is the surprisingly large packet loss in an ad-hoc mode network commingled
with Bluetooth devices. This can be attributed to the fact that the ad-hoc mode uses the air
as its medium for all of its transmissions and that the AP is left operational during the
entire process. Thus, there are essentially five devices in contention during the actual data
transmissions on this test setup. Another result that generated an interest is the huge
discrepancy between the packet error rate on a single 802.11 node connected to a LAN via
an AP and the packet error rate on two 802.11 nodes connected via a single AP. This
validates the notion that using the air as a medium of transmission is error prone. Finally,
the anticipated result that the occurrence of maximum interference will be in the in the
setup comprising of a combination of ad-hoc mode, infrastructure mode and Bluetooth has
been confirmed.

80.00 802.11 + AP + LAN

70.00 802.11 + AP + LAN + BT

60.00 Adhoc
Packet Error Rate (%)

50.00 Adhoc + BT

40.00 2 802.11 + AP

30.00 2 802.11 + AP + BT

20.00 Adhoc + 802.11 + AP + LAN

10.00 Adhoc + 802.11+ AP + LAN +

BT
0.00

Figure 5. Results From a Multitude of Wireless Network Configuration

CONCLUSION AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS

This paper presented the results of an empirical study on the performance of wireless
networks configured with either pure Bluetooth technology or Bluetooth technology co-existing
with different 802.11 network modes. The study revealed several anticipated as well as
unpredicted results. It further validated some fundamental and important notions in wireless
networks: the error prone property of RF, the presence of adverse signal interference on

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heterogeneous wireless networks, the harmful effect of signal diffraction on wireless network
performance, and the consequence of link distance on the quality of wireless transmissions.
Although the experimental results can be considered as too specific to the scenarios and
equipment involved, they provide a practical view of several theoretical concepts on Bluetooth
and 802.11 wireless technologies—a view which is paramount to students in understanding such
abstractions.
Future extensions of this study would include the following:
- an empirical study of the performance of mobile ad-hoc nodes;
- the development of performance benchmarks for multiple wireless technologies;
- an empirical study on the effects of built-in security mechanisms in wireless
transmissions; and
- the design and implementation of pedagogical laboratory projects which adapt
these empirical studies for hands-on activities.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This paper is based upon a project partly supported by the National Science Foundation
under grants DUE-9950946 and DUE-0125635. Opinions expressed are those of the authors
and not necessarily of the Foundation.

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