Bluetooth is ideally suited for PANs (personal area networks) that operate within short ranges and need robust bandwidth support. Bluetooth is also a handy way to get your cell phone talking with a PDA (personal digital assistant), your digital camera transmitting data to a printer, and PDAs beaming information to a laptop.

Similar to the 802.11b specification, Bluetooth broadcasts on the unlicensed 2.4 Ghz band. Although Bluetooth's bandwidth is much larger than 802.11b, its range is much shorter. Bluetooth is the perfect way to connect a peer-to-peer network, and is well suited to the task.

Bluetooth allows mobile devices to recognise each other and communicate within a 30-foot radius. Bluetooth cards are available for PDAs, notebook computers, printers, digital cameras, and other devices. What's nice about Bluetooth isn't just its wide availability: The cards are relatively inexpensive and don't require a huge power source to run.