During five days in Sophia Antipolis, 300 engineers coming from about 60 different firms could test their first wireless transmission products according to Bluetooth standard.
The ETSI in Sophia Antipolis is becoming more and more an activities pole dealing with the most promising telecommunication technologies across the Riviera. That is why in July the Institute co-hosted in Nice-Acropolis the 'IMTC SuperOP' event. A hundred of firms coming from all over the world, among which there were some giants like Microsoft, tested the interoperability of their current or future products about multimedia conferencing and telephony.
The ETSI also hosted the third 'Bluetooth UnplugFest' from 7 to 11 August 2000 in Sophia Antipolis. It was about to allow firms to test the interoperability of their products in the field of Bluetooth wireless technology. It allows to debug the implementations and to ensure that all parties interpret the standards the same way and to speed up the process of bringing products to the market. More than 300 engineers took part in the tests.
Bluetooth can be reduced in order to be integrated into mobile devices. This new technology which will certainly be one of the big discussion topics in 2001, allow a mobile computer to be connected to the Internet without cable. It also allows the constitution of an internal computer network without any cable. The first Bluetooth products are expected to hit the market by the end of this year. According to Francis Truntzer of the Intel Corporation and current chair of the Bluetooth Special Interest Group, 'The objective of UnplugFests is to provide Bluetooth developers with an opportunity to conduct interoperability testing between their implementation and other companies' implementations. The market wants interoperability, and Bluetooth UnplugFests are a big step towards it.'