Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Spectrum Signal Processing (SSPI) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: nord who wrote (2093)	12/27/1998 8:56:00 AM
From: nord	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4400

comsoc.org Nice article on wireless LAN LAN To WAN Summary, Conclusions, and Future Directions In this article, we have described wireless information systems in terms of the need to be both mobile and adaptive. Wireless systems are sparking so much interest of late because of the cross-cutting set of skills needed to construct such systems. While traditional engineering scales are focused in one particular engineering domain, such as circuit design, radio engineering, networks, or computer systems, the real breakthroughs will come from new techniques that span all these areas. Figure 6 illustrates the role of system design in driving the development of wireless systems. Technologists develop new technologies that solve parts of the problem, such as a new network protocol or circuit design methodology. Applications drive the need for new systems by creating demands for systems capabilities, such as access to multimedia in the field or on the move. The system designer must integrate these application needs with the capabilities of new technologies. Figure 6. Research Issues in wireless adaptive mobile information systems. While the ultimate goal of the systems described in this article is to make wireless systems ubiquitously available, there are rational steps along the way that must be developed first. For example, small-scale wireless systems based on local area networks, with a focus on providing basic services, should be constructed first. These would be able to support tens of terminals on a floor and perhaps hundreds within a building. This could be accomplished within the next one to two years. The next step is to scale up to medium-scale systems. Such systems would be usable within a metropolitan area, and would focus on the issues of latency and real-time constraints over multimedia data. Perhaps thousands of such devices would be in use in a cluster of buildings like a college campus. This could be accomplished within the next two to three years. The final step would be large-scale wireless systems, spanning wide area networks, with a focus on addressing and scaling up to potentially millions of users in a globe-spanning network. This could be achieved within three to five years. Along the way, the kinds of prototypes that must be built include terminals, base stations, network switches, servers, protocols, continuous media toolkits, and new file and network services. To test out the ideas, testbeds at the small, medium, and large scales should be undertaken, scaling up in terms of both the number of users and the geographical span of the network. New applications enabled by wireless communications should be prototyped as well. These include collaborative design, engineering/manufacturing co-design, multimedia engineering design notebooks, and crisis management/planning support environments. Some of the challenges and attractive technology opportunities for wireless information systems are summarized in Table 2. Regards Norden