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It was the summer of 1998 when my boss asked me to attend a conference in Atlanta in October about a new wireless technology called Bluetooth.
Bluetooth had only recently been announced and it was important for my company, GN Netcom1, to see what this new technology was all about.
So off I went to Atlanta for a couple of sunny and very interesting days, including sponsored goodies like a good night out, a chocolate phone (real chocolate!) from Nokia, and a real phone from Ericsson. Indeed an eventful conference.
GN Netcom had a vision.
We knew that nobody liked being figuratively "chained" to their desk or their phone. A wireless connection between the headset and the phone would be a winner.
Try and try again
To make our vision come true, we had been working on wireless projects for years and tested out all possible solutions and frequency bands worldwide. We had investigated infrared and inductive technologies and turned them down.
GN Netcom acquired a U.S.-based company that shared our vision. They had designed a wireless solution based on infrared technology. It flopped in the market.
We also worked on solutions in the 200-MHz range.
We worked on—and took to market—a so-called belt-pack solution: The headset connected to a small box you were wearing in your belt. Not totally wireless!
This was a 900 MHz FM RF solution. This made it a U.S.-only product. To enable sales of the same product in Europe, we had to design another hardware based on DECT technology. This was an EU-only product!
Then we started working with a small Swedish company that seemed to have a very attractive solution. This solution was designed for the 433 MHz frequency band—and was in principle solving the same problem as Bluetooth class 2 today.
The only roadblock was to integrate the demo version, which was based on discrete conventional components, into a chip. Before the chip was close to being ready the 433 MHz band was banned for voice applications in Europe. We could potentially get a waiver to sell the solution in Denmark for a couple of years!
Struggling to find the right technology and struggling to handle the fragmented world of available frequency bands—that was the reality to GN Netcom at the time.
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