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729

answers:

3

Ok, this might just be a dumb question, but I was wondering if Bluetooth follows TCP or UDP protocol? From my knowledge of network protocols (which isn't much), I would say that it doesn't follow either of those two and that there is some kind of specific bluetooth protocol that exist. I have one more question...what protocol does the bluetooth functionality in the GameKit in the new iPhone OS 3.0 follow? I haven't looked through every single word of the apple documents yet, but so far, I haven't been able to find it.

+1  A: 

Neither. I can't say which protocol of those that the iPhone uses by default, but I've had some work experience in communicating PCs and cell phones via the RFCOMM protocol at least.

Mark Rushakoff
We both cited the same article with the opposite result. :)
Matthew Flaschen
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluetooth_protocols (the "real" protocol page) does not mention TCP/UDP at all. (Well it does mention TCP, but it's the wrong one).
Mark Rushakoff
True. I'll delete my post.
Matthew Flaschen
+4  A: 

TCP and UDP are transport level protocols whereas Bluetooth would be a lower level protocol. Thus you could use TCP or UDP on top of Bluetooth just as you use TCP and UDP on top of Ethernet.

g .
Ok, thanks. I didn't know which layer of the OSI model bluetooth fell on.
Josh Bradley
+1  A: 

The Bluetooth protocol stack includes its own transport protocols: L2CAP and RFCOMM, where RFCOMM links use the L2CAP layer. You can work some IP tunneling over Bluetooth encapsulating UDP packets over RFCOMM links.

Gamekit hides the Bluetooth stack from you but my guess is that it uses SDP for peer discovery and RFCOMM links for communication between them.

slipbull
This is the case indeed. The only way I've found to use TCP over Bluetooth is to use PPP over RFCOMM.
codekaizen