Preface
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 December 2012
Summary
For many decades, wireless designers have focused on range and link performance. In an emerging wireless-based economy, the need for high device and bandwidth density has begun to drive communications in an opposite direction, stressing spectrum reuse through short-range, highly localized communication architectures. Some of these adaptions are apparent now: low-cost femtocells fill a service gap between taller and higher-power cellular towers and the lower-power wireless local area networks; backhaul bandwidth to the infrastructure is as much of a constraint as the wireless up- and down-links; and wireless architectures have evolved to use a diversity of technologies, beyond cellular. Future communications architectures are unlikely to be a choice among cellular, wireless local area network, peer-to-peer, and fixed modalities, but will instead constitute an integrated framework whose optimizing process will be so dynamic that these modalities will be invisible to users.
Wireless technology is at a fundamental tipping point. The goal of new technology is not to “build out” and achieve spatial coverage, but to “in build” to achieve device and information density. Many of the fundamental principles that were appropriate to achieve network coverage are reversed when the objective of the network transitions to density and scalability. Additionally, future wireless environments will become much more heterogeneous, as they integrate multiple technologies; opportunistic, as dedicated spectrum is no longer available, and spectrum must be dynamically shared; and adaptive, as the technology must recognize the local challenges of coverage and density and adapt in situ.
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- Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2012