Bluetooth

A wireless personal area network (WPAN) standard for short-range transmission of digital voice and data. Using omnidirectional
radio waves, Bluetooth transmits through walls and other non-metal barriers. It is widely used for hands-free conversations:
countless cellphones are connected to Bluetooth headsets, and numerous vehicles contain Bluetooth-enabled audio systems.

"Bluetooth is defined as a layer protocol architecture consisting of core protocols, cable replacement protocols, telephony control
protocols, and adopted protocols."[35] Mandatory protocols for all Bluetooth stacks are: LMP, L2CAP and SDP. Additionally, these
protocols are almost universally supported: HCI and RFCOMM.

LMP (Link Management Protocol)

Used for control of the radio link between two devices. Implemented on the controller.

L2CAP (Logical Link Control & Adaptation Protocol)

Used to multiplex multiple logical connections between two devices using different higher level protocols. Provides segmentation

and reassembly of on-air packets.

In Basic mode, L2CAP provides packets with a payload configurable up to 64kB, with 672 bytes as the default MTU, and 48 bytes

as the minimum mandatory supported MTU.

In Retransmission & Flow Control modes, L2CAP can be configured for reliable or isochronous data per channel by performing

retransmissions and CRC checks.

Bluetooth Core Specification Addendum 1 adds two additional L2CAP modes to the core specification. These modes effectively

deprecate original Retransmission and Flow Control modes:

 Enhanced Retransmission Mode (ERTM): This mode is an improved version of the original retransmission mode. This

mode provides a reliable L2CAP channel.

 Streaming Mode (SM): This is a very simple mode, with no retransmission or flow control. This mode provides an

unreliable L2CAP channel.

Reliability in any of these modes is optionally and/or additionally guaranteed by the lower layer Bluetooth BDR/EDR air interface by

configuring the number of retransmissions and flush timeout (time after which the radio will flush packets). In-order sequencing is

guaranteed by the lower layer.

Only L2CAP channels configured in ERTM or SM may be operated over AMP logical links.

HCI (Host/Controller Interface)

Standardised communication between the host stack (e.g., a PC or mobile phone OS) and the controller (the Bluetooth IC). This

standard allows the host stack or controller IC to be swapped with minimal adaptation.

There are several HCI transport layer standards, each using a different hardware interface to transfer the same command, event

and data packets. The most commonly used are USB (in PCs) andUART (in mobile phones and PDAs).
In Bluetooth devices with simple functionality (e.g., headsets) the host stack and controller can be implemented on the same

microprocessor. In this case the HCI is optional, although often implemented as an internal software interface.

RFCOMM (Cable replacement protocol)

Radio frequency communications (RFCOMM) is the cable replacement protocol used to create a virtual serial data stream.

RFCOMM provides for binary data transport and emulates EIA-232 (formerly RS-232) control signals over the Bluetooth baseband

layer.

RFCOMM provides a simple reliable data stream to the user, similar to TCP. It is used directly by many telephony related profiles as

a carrier for AT commands, as well as being a transport layer for OBEX over Bluetooth.

Many Bluetooth applications use RFCOMM because of its widespread support and publicly available API on most operating

systems. Additionally, applications that used a serial port to communicate can be quickly ported to use RFCOMM.

[edit]BNEP (Bluetooth Network Encapsulation Protocol)

BNEP is used for transferring another protocol stack's data via an L2CAP channel. It's main purpose is the transmission of IP

packets in the Personal Area Networking Profile. BNEP performs a similar function to SNAP in Wireless LAN.

[edit]AVCTP (Audio/Visual Control Transport Protocol)

Used by the remote control profile to transfer AV/C commands over an L2CAP channel. The music control buttons on a stereo

headset use this protocol to control the music player.

[edit]AVDTP (Audio/Visual Data Transport Protocol)

Used by the advanced audio distribution profile to stream music to stereo headsets over an L2CAP channel. Intended to be used by

video distribution profile.

[edit]Telephone control protocol

Telephony control protocol-binary (TCS BIN) is the bit-oriented protocol that defines the call control signaling for the establishment

of voice and data calls between Bluetooth devices. Additionally, "TCS BIN defines mobility management procedures for handling

groups of Bluetooth TCS devices."

TCS-BIN is only used by the cordless telephony profile, which failed to attract implementers. As such it is only of historical interest.

[edit]Adopted protocols

Adopted protocols are defined by other standards-making organizations and incorporated into Bluetooth’s protocol stack, allowing

Bluetooth to create protocols only when necessary. The adopted protocols include:

Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP)

Internet standard protocol for transporting IP datagrams over a point-to-point link.

Foundation Protocols for TCP/IP protocol suite

Session-layer protocol for the exchange of objects, providing a model for object and operation representation
Wireless Application Environment/Wireless Application Protocol (WAE/WAP)
WAE specifies an application framework for wireless devices and WAP is an open standard to provide mobile users

access to telephony and information services.[35]