WLANs and WPANs Towards 4G Wireless (Universal Personal Communications Series)

Explore the present and future trends of WLANs and WPANs with this new, forwarding looking resource. You discover the path that these infrastructures are following from a perspective of synergies with 3G systems, and how they will pave the way for future 4G systems. The book presents a thorough overview of 3G networks and standards, and discusses interworking and handover mechanisms between WLANs and UMTS. You learn what performance can be expected from WLANs and WPANs when they support the TCP/IP stack. Several critical issues are examined in depth, including IP routing and mobility, , PHY and MAC layers for the main WLAN specifications, the TCP-UDP/IP protocol stack, and performance of TCP/IP over IEEE 802.11b.

Prasad (wireless information and multimedia, Aalborg U.) and Muñoz (U. of Cantabria) break ground toward fourth-generation mobile communication by introducing mobility in heterogeneous IP networks with both third-generation and wireless local area networks. They overview third-generation networks and standards, and discuss interworking and handover mechanisms between wireless local networks and the Universal Mobile Telecommunication System. The material varies in technical depth, some being accessible to managers, researchers, system designers, and graduate students. Annotation (c)2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Ramjee Prasad is wireless information and multimedia chair and co-director of the Center for PersonKommunikation at Aalborg University. He is the author of CDMA for Wireless Personal Communications (Artech House, 1996) and Universal Wireless Personal Communications (Artech House, 1998), co-author of IP/ATM Mobile Satellite Networks (Artech House, 2002) and OFDM for Wireless Multimedia Communications (Artech House, 2000), and co-editor of Third Generation Mobile Communication Systems (Artech House, 2000), WCDMA: Towards IP Mobility and Mobile Internet (Artech House, 2001), and Wireless IP and Building the Mobile Internet (Artech House, 2003). Luis Muñoz is an associate professor at the University of Cantabria. He received M.Sc. degree in electrical engineering and Ph.D. degree in telecommunications engineering, both from the Polytechnical University of Cataluña. He has more than 30 international publications in topics related to wireless networks and he is responsible, among others, for several EU funded projects related to wireless IP technologies.