Kaveh Pahlavan and Prashant Krishnamurthy
PRINCIPLES OF WIRELESS NETWORKS:
A Unified Approach
Hardcover, pp. 584, plus XIV, $ 89,99
Prentice Hall PTR, Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458, 2002
ISBN 0-13-093003-2
http://www.pearsoneduc.com

In general about book

During the last decade the field of wireless communication is exploding, both economically and technologically. Without doubt, wireless communication is the fastest growing segment of the communications industry today. The desire for mobility coupled with the demand for voice, Internet, and multimedia services indicates a bright future for wireless networks. Wireless communications systems are replacing antiquated wireline systems in many countries. In addition, there are many technical challenges to overcome in building high performance wireless networks.

The main intent of the authors is to provide a comprehensive technical survey of wireless communication fundamentals, wireless networks and wireless applications. The book is organized into five sections: one introduction chapter and four parts. The first part of the book (Chapters 2 - 4) covers important technical aspects of air-interface design, the second (Chapters 5 - 6) is devoted to technical aspects of wireless network infrastructure, the third one (Chapters 7 - 9) concentrates on wireless WANs, and finally part four (Chapters 10 - 14) deals with local broadband and ad hoc networks. At the end, Acronyms and Abbreviations, References, an Index, and information About the Authors are added.

Chapter content

Chapter 1 is an introductory Chapter. It provides an overview of the important wireless networks (WNs).

Part One focuses on the technical background for the design of the air-interface for WNs. Chapter 2 analyzes the behavior of wireless medium and explains several models from the aspect of prediction of a channel behavior in different environments. Chapter 3 gives details concerning transmission techniques employed in voice-oriented cellular and PCS systems as well as data-oriented mobile- data, WLAN, and WPAN systems. Chapter 4 concentrates on multiple access alternatives applied to WNs.

Part Two of this book is concerned with technical aspects of fixed infrastructure of the WNs. Chapter 5 looks at technologies related to the initial deployment and latter expansion of the infrastructure for WNs. Several topologies, channel allocation techniques, and architectural methods used for expansion of the network are explained in this Chapter. Chapter 6 deals with functionalities of the fixed network infrastructure that are needed to support mobile operation. Part Three provides description of important voice- and data-oriented wireless WANs. Chapter 7 gives a detailed description of GSM as a representative of TDMA systems. Details of the IS-95 air interface standard followed by the 3G W-CDMA air interfaces used in IMT-2000 are presented also. Chapter 9 provides an overview of the lower speed wide area wireless data services referred as mobile data networks.

Part Four is devoted to the details of broadband and ad hoc wireless local networks. Chapter 10 analyzes the evolution of WLAN industry. It explains how WLAN started for office and manufacturing environments and is currently heading toward home area networking (HAN). Chapter 11 describes details of the IEEE 802.11 standard for WLAN. It explain specification of the PHY and MAC layer alternatives supported by this standard. In addition details of mobility support mechanisms such as registration, handoff, power management, and security are given. Chapter 12 is devoted to wireless ATM activities and the HIPERLAN standard. It starts with an overview of the technical aspect of wireless ATM, then provides a short description of the HIPERLAN-1 as a data- oriented WLAN standard, and after that describes the necessary details of HIPERLAN-2 as voice- oriented network. Chapter 13 describes wireless personal area networks. It covers the basic principles of Bluetooth technology. Finally, Chapter 14 discusses geolocation and cellular positioning as emerging technologies to complement the WLAN and wireless WAN services. Some of the chapters, such as chapters 1, 2, 3, and 6 include appendices with goal to support the material in the text. In addition, each chapter ends with subsections Questions and unsolved Problems.

Useful book

I find this book interesting. The material is well organized and clearly presented. The concepts are sufficiently and well explained so that readers can understand the techniques being discussed and the problems they are intended to solve. There are many small and medium-sized working examples, and problems, that show how to use the concepts and that can serve as the basis for building more complicated problems. In essence, numerous solved examples are effective at supporting the text and make the presentation easy to follow. The length of the book seems suitable for its subjects. It is primarily written as a textbook for upper-level undergraduates or graduates in computer-science and electrical engineering, but can be used by professionals and anyone who need to know more about wireless communications and networks. Having in mind the above mentioned, I highly recommend this book.