Link Sharing in High Capacity Bluetooth Voice Access Networks

Bluetooth is currently being integrated into many different types of cellphones and other portable devices. Future access networks can use this connectivity to provide real-time voice services in public places such as airports, convention centers and shopping malls. To obtain good statistical performance a large number of potential Bluetooth voice links would be provided throughout the desired coverage area. In the results presented we show that Bluetooth SCO voice links are inadequate for this purpose. Unfortunately, when coverage is such that significant Bluetooth base station and link sharing is possible, SCO packet loss rates are unacceptable. The alternative is to operate such a network using voice over Bluetooth ACL links (VoACL), and a simple VoACL scheme is proposed and investigated. A finite windowed loss rate model is also proposed and is used to characterize these designs. Analytic and simulation models show that VoACL can result in acceptable voice packet loss performance compared with SCO voice designs and that the call blocking rate is about the same between the ACL and SCO systems.