rhaps there should be. The problem is compounded when the misalignment is supported by economic theory that transparently fails to observe contrary evidence that market forces do not necessarily result in technical and/or commercial efficiency. 2.13 OFDM in Wireless - A Similar Story? Nicholas Negroponte based his 'switch thesis' on the assumption that wireless, which in this context we are describing as a transmission at a radio frequency, is bandwidth limited. This is of course fundamentally untrue. Wireless systems are power limited but have almost limitless 23 http://www.hillebrand-partners.com/ Physical Layer Connectivity spectrum available to them. For example, today we have wireless systems implemented at long wave, medium wave, short wave and UHF and microwave frequencies. WiFi chip sets are presently under development that have 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz and 60 GHz transceiver capability and all three frequencies (though particularly 60 GHz where there is an oxygen absorption peak) have high frequency reuse potential. Mobile broadband networks around the world have the best part of 1 GHz of bandwidth allocated to them, not all in the same place or at the same time admittedly and the bandwidth can be hard to access due to component limitations but essentially the amount of bandwidth available dwarfs the 30 MHz available to us in the copper local loop. The assumed constraints of wireless in terms of free-space loss attenuation are also open to question. A microwave dish with a one-degree bandwidth communicating with another microwave dish with a one-degree bandwidth will have >50 dB of gain relative to an isotropic radiator. Antenna directional selectivity can therefore be translated directly into range gain. Similarly the use of multiple antennas and multiple paths between a transmitter and receiver can be translated into capacity gain or at least a gain in peak data rates for individual users. Wireless could be described as a guided media operating in free space. Several fundamental trends have been ever present in 