s page intentionally left blank Chapter 1.0 Introduction John T. Moring The last two decades have been the most dynamic in the In 1969, the Federal Communications Commission history of wireless communications [1]. Most notably, (FCC) allotted portions of the radio frequency spectrum mobile voice communications has exploded from for mobile telephones. In the 1970s the Post Office Code a tiny niche market to a part of our daily lives. Building Standardization Advisory (POCSAG) numeric paging on comparable advances in computers and networking code was standardized, and AT&T rolled out the first technology, today's wide area and local area wireless mobile telephone services operating on a cellular system. systems are poised to take us to the next level of mobile In 1987, the FCC allowed the use of new technologies in data services, where all the capabilities of the Internet are the 800 MHz cellular spectrum, with the first digital literally at our fingertips wherever we go. cellular transmissions (code division multiple access In this chapter, we briefly review the history of [CDMA], time division multiple access [TDMA], and wireless communications, survey today's wireless land- global system for mobile communication [GSM]) tested scape, and introduce some of the leading edge topics in the United States shortly thereafter. With the adop- covered later in this volume [2]. tion of digital technologies, new features such as voice mail, fax, and short messages have been enabled. The boom in wireless usage in the 1990s (paralleling A short history of wireless the Internet boom) has led to near ubiquitous wireless communication voice service throughout the United States and in much of the world. Personal wireless data services, exemplified by such technologies as short message service (SMS), Figure 1.0-1 shows a time line of the development of wireless application protocol (WAP), ReFlex, Bluetooth, wireless communications. We are well into the second i-Mode, and 802.11, offer a range of mobile data services century of radi