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All are welcome; a new Red-M wireless hub provides both WiFi and Bluetooth

One day, all mobile phones will have Bluetooth. And all PCs will have WiFi. So it was probably inevitable that someone would build a network hub that provided wireless access for both standards

What will really interest visitors to San Francisco's Moscone exhibition centre on December 10th, will be to see how much mutual interference there will be, between the dual wireless standards in its new Genos-driven network hub.

The exciting thing is that this is exactly what Red-M plans. It wants users to be able to wander in and out of range of a number of access points, maintaining contact with the Internet as they switch between Bluetooth's slower 1 megabit per second data rate, and the far quicker 11 megabit max of WiFi.

Sceptics have long forecast that because Bluetooth and WiFi standards both transmit and receive in the 2.4 GHz waveband (normally used for microwave ovens) they must affect each other. And when Red-M first announced that it planned to sell a wireless access point for Bluetooth users, many prophesied that it wouldn't work in the typical office.

The two standards are often cast as contestants for the universal wireless networking market. Many observers have offered the opinion that one will win, or the other will triumph; and one area which has long puzzled theorists was: "If you put them both in the same room, surely, one will simply drown out the other?"

In many cases, they won't, simply because the user will be much closer to the right one. Most Bluetooth wireless devices will be hidden in pockets; a phone in one, an audio headset for hands-free talking in another. The signal will be very weak compared with any WiFi transmitter in the neighbourhood, but it won't have far to travel, and inside its normal range, the Bluetooth devices will have no trouble picking up their own station, so to speak.

But Red-M's device assumes that both devices may even be in the same box; and it transmits Bluetooth quite a lot more powerfully than most pocket phones ever would. It also has a far more sensitive receiver, being able to pick up Bluetooth signals from as much as 100 metres in clear air; and some experts say that this will, definitely, lead to confusion.

"We've already seen significant performance drop off in Bluetooth when in the broadcast area of a WiFi access point," claimed Nick Hunn, managing director of Bluetooth specialist TDK in the UK.

Red-M has said it will demonstrate a mixed, secure, 802.11 WLAN and Bluetooth network controlled by Genos, its new wireless architecture. The network will be accessed by a number of data and voice-enabled edge devices such as: laptops, cordless telephony profile (CTP) mobile phones and personal digital assistants (PDA's).

For many, Genos will be the star of the show, since it aims to provide a service infrastructure which would otherwise require hard work to set up. Genos supports not just Bluetooth and today's standard WiFi devices (802.11b) but also is capable of managing devices using future standards such as 802.11a and .11g, says the company.

Normally, Bluetooth users can't roam between different access points. Some devices - such as wireless headsets - simply won't try to recognise any access point except the phone or audio system they are paired with.

But in future, many notebook PCs will have both standards embedded inside the box, as part of the main circuit board. Obviously, given a choice of standards, a notebook user would opt for the speed of WiFi, especially when 802.11a comes along, with the promise of 50 megabit per second transmissions. But if the choice is between either using a (relatively slow) Bluetooth link, or rather, dropping right out of contact with the IP network, then they'll be glad of the option, thinks Red-M.