Emerging Mobile and Wireless Networks
What are Networks? ... Thus, Networks enable computers to share files and resources and exchange messages. A network can range from a peer-to-peer network connecting a small number of users in an office or department, to a local area network connecting many users over permanently installed cables and dial-up lines, or to a wide area network connecting users on several different networks spread over a wide geographic area. ... • Mobile telephones providing voice communications, a mailbox, and in some cases low-speed data access. ... Why Wireless was needed? ... With wireless networks, users can access shared information without looking for a place to plug in, and network managers can set up or augment networks without installing or moving wires. Wireless networks offer the following productivity, convenience, and cost advantages over traditional wired networks: • Mobility: Wireless Networks can provide users with access to real-time information anywhere at work and in the home. • Installation Speed and Simplicity: Installing a wireless networks can be fast and easy and can eliminate the need to pull cable through walls and ceilings. • Installation Flexibility: Wireless technology allows the network to go where wire cannot go. • Reduced Cost-of-Ownership: While the initial investment required for wireless networks hardware can be higher than the cost of wired networks hardware. ... • Scalability: Wireless configurations can be easily changed and range from peer-to-peer networks suitable for a small number of users to full infrastructure networks of thousands of users that enable roaming over a broad area. (Krishnamurthy & Kaveh, 2002) What are Wireless Networks A communication system that transmits and receives data using modulated electromagnetic waves, implemented as an extension to, or as an alternative for, a Wired Network. Wireless networking technologies take the concept of "no new wires". In a wireless network, all of the computers in home/office broadcast their information to one another using radio signals ("Radio waves" transmit music, conversations, pictures and data invisibly through the air, often over millions of miles). ... For example, a laptop with a wireless network card is completely portable throughout the house! (Stallings: 6th Edition) History of the Wireless Networks In 1970 the idea of wireless networks is tracked and since then interest has been growing. ... Today we see two kinds of wireless networks The first kind and most used today is a wireless network built on-top of a ``wired network and thus creates a reliable infrastructured wireless network. ... (Rajan: 2000) Emerging Mobile and Wireless Technologies We can classify the emerging mobile and wireless technologies in three generations since 1970. ... The prominent technologies are discussed below: Advanced Mobile Phone System (AMPS) In 1983, the analog cell-phone standard called AMPS (Advanced Mobile Phone System) was approved by the FCC and first used in Chicago. ... Now a new version of AMPS known as Narrowband Advanced Mobile Phone Service (NAMPS) incorporates some digital technology to allow the system to carry about three times as many calls as the original version. ... The prominent technologies of the second generation are discussed below: Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) technology is a driving force behind wireless networks around the globe. ... de/research/cdma/) Cellular Digital Packet Data (CDPD) An enhanced packet overlay on analog cell phone networks used to transmit and receive data. This technology allows data files to be broken into a number of packets and sent along idle channels of existing cellular voice networks. ... GSM (Global System for Mobile communications) GSM, a 2G technology, is the de facto European standard for digital cellular telephone service, and it is also available in the America. GSM is the most widely used of the three digital wireless telephone technologies (TDMA, GSM and CDMA), and it supports voice, data, text messaging and cross-border roaming.