The rapid growth and convergence of mobile communications has led to a need for new techniques and solutions and a demand for knowledgeable communication professionals who have a firm grasp of the background theory and technologies and who also understand the future trends and possibilities within the field.

In this book Jochen Schiller draws on extensive experience to present an essential grounding in mobile communications, explaining current developments in industry and research and providing a detailed technical background to the area. The book covers all of the important aspects of mobile and wireless communications from the Internet to signals, access protocols and cellular systems, all presented in a clear and structured way, with a focus on the crucial area of digital data transfer.

The early chapters give a concise overview of mobile communications applications, history and market, and provide a foundation in wireless communication, wireless transmission and Medium Access Control. The book goes on to devote a chapter to each of the 5 different groups of wireless network technologies: telecommunications systems, satellite systems, broadcast systems, wireless LAN and wireless ATM. The final chapters on the network layer and transport layer address problems and provide solutions using well-known Internet protocols such as TCP/IP within a mobile environment, concluding with a focus on WWW and Wireless Application Protocol (WAP).

If you are a professional networking engineer or manager wanting to know how mobility will affect applications, security and networks, this book will be an invaluable resource.

Mobile Communications will enable you to:
• recognise and understand the future trends in networking
• understand design decisions
• follow through paths of migration from fixed networks towards mixed fixed/mobile networks

Features:
• easy access to specific topics through self-contained chapters
• quick reference and learning tools: summary of each chapter; signposted references to relevant standards, organizations and research work; end of chapter questions for self-testing/study; appendix of acronyms
• wide range of examples, applications scenarios and case studies
• accompanying web site contains up-to-date developments and links to related mobile and wireless communications sites, figures and PowerPoint™ slides
• covers digital systems such as CDMA, GSM, and DECT
• covers up-to-date technologies in all areas of mobile communications with extensive examples and special features: telecommunications (GSM and UMTS); broadcast (DAB); wireless LANs (IEEE 802.11, HIPERLAN and Bluetooth); wireless ATM (QoS) and Internet Protocols (IP and TCP)