Why does Wi-Fi have so much more bandwidth than Bluetooth?

Both Bluetooth and WLAN [802.11] operates on ISM band 2.4GHz. additionally WiFi has a version that operates on 5 Ghz band too.

1] Why WiFi has more bandwidth or speed than Bluetooth?

Because WiFi is designed to have more speed than Bluetooth. The factor which makes the difference is power usage. Bluetooth is designed as a technology that uses very low amount of power. So data rates are restricted in the PHY [physical layer used by Bluetooth] to achieve this low power usage. Basically Bluetooth’s PHY layer uses low data rate’s because low data rate require very little power.

WiFi is designed as a wireless rival of Ethernet. So bandwidth [speed] matters. So WiFi’s physical layer [PHY] is designed to have higher data rates. Higher data rates means more power, this also means your devices battery power will be drained faster.

2] Is it possible to have Bluetooth-5 with more bandwidth than 802.11-n?

Absolutely possible, if Bluetooth protocol stack is placed on top of a higher bandwidth PHY, Bluetooth will achieve higher bandwidth.

There is a technology called AMP [Alternate MAC PHY] as part of Bluetooth spec 4.0 [if my memory is correct], where Bluetooth protocol stack sits on top of WLAN [802.11] MAC. This approach was to solve Bluetooth’s bandwidth problem. AMP is not used by many people today I guess.

3] PHY Data rates and achievable data rates

The rates advertised [54 mbps – 802.11 a] is the maximum raw throughput achievable at PHY level , in “ideal channel conditions”. Which means in labs. typically when we use it in real world, there will be interference and so retries. This will reduce the bandwidth. also the protocol stack layer and applications on top of PHY will add latency on top of it. typically with a best performing implementation of 802.11a , the maximum achievable application level throughput in real world scenarios is around 40 MBPS.

Hope it helps. I am happy to answer more, if you got more questions on this.

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