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I know that most wireless communication devices have a MAC address. I wonder if the pool from which their MAC addresses are assigned is the same address pool from which physical Ethernet devices also take their MAC addresses from.

In my opinion it should not be the same pool because it would be no problem if a Bluetooth Device and a Network Interface Card in a Personal Computer have the same MAC address? It is not possible, in my opinion, to have a collision.

Even if a Bluetooth device would somehow be connected to an Ethernet LAN it would be through some sort of network adapter and the network adapter should have a MAC address of its own and that MAC address will be the one that will be used to communicate in the respective LAN. Is this right?

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  • Did any answer help you? If so, you should accept the answer so that the question doesn't keep popping up forever, looking for an answer. Alternatively, you can provide and accept your own answer.
    – Ron Maupin ♦
    Commented Feb 19, 2018 at 18:11
  • For 48-bit MAC addresses, a company will buy a 24-bit OUI from the IEEE. Beyond that, the IEEE gives the company the right to assign any individual MAC addresses within that 24-bit OUI as the company owning the OUI wants. Some companies will get multiple OUIs, some reuse MAC addresses for different technologies, or in different parts of the world, etc. Smart companies that make devices using different protocols will not duplicate MAC addresses, but that does not mean that none do.
    – Ron Maupin ♦
    Commented Jan 30, 2019 at 1:27

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Ethernet uses the "MAC-48" address space by IEEE. It is/was used for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Fibre Channel, SAS, ATM, Token Ring (and some others) as well. This gives us the opportunity to bridge all of these media together - more or less easily, frame formats/capabilities can differ significantly.

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Is the MAC address pool from which Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, GSM cards etc take their addresses from the same address pool as the ethernet MAC address pool?

Yes. These are 48-bit addresses and the IEEE manages the assignment of addresses from this space.

In my opinion it should not be the same pool because it would be no problem if a Bluetooth Device and a Network Interface Card in a Personal Computer have the same MAC address? It is not possible, in my opinion, to have a collision.

Your opinion is simply wrong. There is no reason someone cannot run IP over Bluetooth and bridge the Bluetooth connection to an Ethernet LAN in a similar fashion that 802.11 traffic functions.

Even if a Bluetooth device would somehow be connected to an Ethernet LAN it would be through some sort of network adapter and the network adapter should have a MAC address of its own and that MAC address will be the one that will be used to communicate in the respective LAN. Is this right?

No, this isn't right. As I stated above, one could create a "Bluetooth access point" and bridge the traffic to the Ethernet segment. It would not require any sort of network adapter with an independent MAC address.

Just because it hasn't been done (to my knowledge) due to a number of reasons that make this impractical, doesn't mean it isn't possible. Edit: not overly familiar with Bluetooth, but a quick follow up web search for "bluetooth to ethernet bridge" turns up a number of such devices. So there may be devices out there already doing this.

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