The 2.0 spec will offer new communication modes on top of the current Bluetooth by using "a non-hopping narrowband channel and distributed media-access control protocols," said Haartsen. The higher-rate mode is also designed to provide "faster response times and built-in quality-of-service, and offer broadcast/multicast support," he said.

Bluetooth 2.0 is expected to operate over the same 10-meter distance as the present Bluetooth. Its peak power consumption is expected to be double that of the current Bluetooth.

The distributed protocol used in Bluetooth 2.0 is designed to alleviate the problems of the present Bluetooth's master/slave-based Piconet, which drops the Piconet when a master leaves. Bluetooth 2.0 dispenses with masters and makes any device on a Piconet a supervisor, so devices on the Piconet can continue to communicate.

Separately, the Bluetooth SIG is also working on a medium-rate spec called Bluetooth 1.2, designed to offer communication rates of 2 to 3 Mbits/s.

The Bluetooth 2.0 spec is emerging as a number of IEEE standards groups are accelerating their work on wireless LAN and wireless PAN technologies in an effort to address wireless connectivity of audio and video devices throughout a home. Despite the proliferation of competing wireless technologies, Ericsson's Haartsen argued for the necessity of high-rate Bluetooth 2.0. "As mobile phones evolve, Bluetooth also needs to evolve," he said. No other wireless technology matches the low-power, low-cost wireless features required by mobile handsets as they begin to deal with interactive gaming and multimedia applications, Haartsen said.

Ericsson Technology Licensing president Maria Khorsand said: "Bluetooth 2.0 does not replace but complements the [current-generation] Bluetooth."

Ericsson has been working on the higher-rate Bluetooth technology since the early '90s, and is currently designing a radio platform that will support both medium-rate and high-rate Bluetooth. "We already have a working demonstration up and running in our labs," said Haartsen. Ericsson plans to complete its high-rate Bluetooth silicon by the end of 2003.

Nevertheless, the Bluetooth SIG may not release the Bluetooth 2.0 spec until 2004, Haartsen said. The group's timing is "very much dependent on how the current Bluetooth market grows," he said.

"That may not be a bad thing," said Joyce Putscher, director of the consumer and converging markets and technologies group at the Cahners In-Stat Group. Noting that it has taken developers years to get the kinks out of the current Bluetooth specs and to sort out interoperability issues, Putscher said, "Companies within the SIG can continue to work on the silicon and perfect it while the SIG completes the Bluetooth 2.0 spec."

The cost premium for Bluetooth 2.0 chip sets is expected to be "about 20 percent, but no more" than current Bluetooth chips, Haartsen said.