o communications. The pioneering work that are not far behind. For every wireline technology, of Faraday, Maxwell, Hertz, and others in the 1800s led from serial cable to fiber optics, there is an analogous to Marconi's wireless telegraph at the turn of the wireless technology available when it is not feasible or century. The precursors to mobile radio as we know it convenient to use a cable connection. Figure 1.0-2 de- have been available since the first transportable voice picts how rapidly newer technologies grew in the 1990s radios of the 1920s. Radio technology matured in the while the number of wireline telephone installations in subsequent decades, with broadcast radio and televi- homes remained relatively static. sion, and the portable manpack walkie-talkies of World War II. In the 1940s, cellular technology was conceived, with the ability to divide radio frequency service areas into "cells" to reduce interference and increase capac- Where we are ity. This is the basis for today's wide area voice and wireless local area networking technologies. Within Today's wireless technologies offer an immense range of a few years of the first satellite launch in 1957, satel- capabilities to the user. System throughputs continue to lites were being sent into space to act as communica- expand, offering the ability to support an increasing tion relays. number of applications. Wireless communication system Communications Engineering Desk Reference; ISBN: 9780123746481 Copyright © 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved CHAPTER 1.0 Introduction Timeline systems, such as paging and cellular, provide extended mobility but with relatively limited throughput. These categories are explored in the following section. Audio/Video on Demand High-Speed Mobile Before entering a discussion of specific wireless tech- Wireless nologies, it is useful to review the relevant characteristics World Wide Web of a generic radio system. Figure 1.0-4 illustrates a wire- Personal Satellite less system, showing a signal sent from the transmitter o