title: Why does Wi-Fi have so much more bandwidth than Bluetooth?
body: <p>While researching wireless communication protocols for a potential application, I came across this page on Wikipedia which lists throughput rates for both Bluetooth and 802.11 networks: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_device_bit_rates">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_device_bit_rates</a></p>
  
  <p>Here is a relevant selection from the link:</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li>1 Mbps - Bluetooth 1.1</li>
  <li>3 Mbps - Bluetooth 2.0+EDR</li>
  <li>24 Mbps - Bluetooth 3.0, Bluetooth 4.0</li>
  <li>54 Mbps - 802.11a</li>
  <li>600 Mbps - 802.11n</li>
  </ul>
  
  <p>Why does Bluetooth have so little throughput compared to the Wi-Fi standards?</p>
  
  <p>Is it simply because the standard set by the governing body intentionally sets a lower data transfer rate in order to allow hardware costs to stay low?</p>
  
  <p>Is it possible we could get a "Bluetooth 5" with bandwidth on the order of 802.11a or 802.11n, or is there some deliberate design decision that results in low transfer rates (e.g. sacrificing speed in favor of low power consumption)?</p>
  
  <p>Edit: to be clear, I understand that the listed data rates are theoretical maximums and do not reflect real world performance.</p>