Wireless Networking

Understanding Internetworking Challenges

Jack L. Burbank, Julia Andrusenko, Jared S. Everett, William T. M. Kasch

• Publisher: Wiley-IEEE Press
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781118122389
• eBook ISBN: 9781118590782
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Mobile & Wireless Communications
• Index: Technology & Engineering

This book focuses on providing a detailed and practical explanation of key existing and emerging wireless networking technologies and trends, while minimizing the amount of theoretical background information. The book also goes beyond simply presenting what the technology is, but also examines why the technology is the way it is, the history of its development, standardization, and deployment. The book also describes how each technology is used, what problems it was designed to solve, what problems it was not designed to solve., how it relates to other technologies in the marketplace, and internetworking challenges faced withing the context of the Internet, as well as providing deployment trends and standardization trends. Finally, this book decomposes evolving wireless technologies to identify key technical and usage trends in order to discuss the likely characteristics of future wireless networks.

Chapter 1

Introduction

If you were in a state of cryogenic suspension for the past two decades and suddenly awoke, you would find yourself inundated with information coming from the use of cellular phones, personal computers connected to the Internet, tablets, digital music players, e-book readers, high-definition televisions, digital cameras, and a variety of other digital gadgets that have entered common households while you were asleep. Dear reader (drumroll, please), welcome to the information age, an era that can be characterized by one's ability to disseminate and access knowledge freely and instantly, something that would have been extremely difficult to attain in the past. When the traditional industry in the 1800s shifted into the age of the Industrial Revolution, the effect on global socioeconomic and cultural conditions was phenomenally profound. The information era we find ourselves in now leads us into another time of changing socioeconomic and cultural conditions. “Information is king” is the new mantra of our generation: how we acquire it, how we share it, and how we protect it.

As we continue to experience the information technology revolution, the requirements for broadband access will become even more challenging with the growing popularity of various multimedia applications. To satisfy this expanding market need, current broadband networks need to extend their reach while new broadband infrastructures need to be deployed in developing countries without existing wired broadband infrastructures.

When one considers how essential the wireless Internet is to our everyday life today, it is hard to fathom that wireless Internet access was virtually nonexistent a mere two decades ago. In that time, wireless Internet technology has grown at a tremendous rate. In this book, we attempt to provide a comprehensive overview of today's diverse wireless networking landscape. This text attempts to provide a good starting point for those unfamiliar with the numerous wireless networking standards and also provides a concise refresher or gap-filler for the seasoned professional.

1.1 Data Networks versus Cellular Networks

The predominant wireless networking standards in today's commercial wireless networking landscape can be divided into two general categories: wireless computer networking standards and cellular networking standards. Wireless computer networking standards are those standards that emerged from the discipline of computer networking. These are networks that, from their inception, served the primary purpose of supporting computer communications and Internet access. Cellular networking standards are those standards that emerged from the discipline of cellular telephony, a traditionally voice-oriented field. Today, the line between these two categories has become increasingly blurred with the convergence of computers and mobile communications devices. Many of today's mobile cellular handsets contain one or more radios to communicate with wireless computer networks, such as IEEE 802.11 (Wi-Fi) or Bluetooth. Similarly, cellular data modems for laptop computers have been available for over a decade. This distinction was blurred even further in 2007, when the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) recognized mobile WiMAX, an IEEE-based wireless metropolitan area network standard with mobility enhancements, as an official third-generation (3G) cellular standard. Moving forward, the distinction between wireless computer networking standards and cellular networking standards is more a historical distinction than a functional one. As we will see later, however, these historical differences play a significant role in how these standards came to be the way they are today.

A key historical difference between wireless computer networks and cellular networks is the degree of mobility support they are designed to provide. Early wireless computer networks were designed for fixed or nomadic use. The term “nomadic” refers to those terminals that may move between sessions but typically are stationary during communication with the network. This is in contrast to a mobile terminal, which is one that may be in motion as communication takes place. Cellular networks, on the other hand, were designed from the beginning to support a high degree of mobility (e.g., in a moving vehicle). Modern wireless communications devices have shifted toward increased mobility across the board. However, today's systems build upon their predecessors and often inherit design decisions from previous generations. In this way, a modern technology's heritage (i.e., wireless computer network vs. cellular network) impacts the manner in which mobility is implemented and how well it is supported.

There is, additionally, a trend toward seamless mobility—this is also breaking down the boundaries between “wireless computer networking” and “cellular networking” technologies as internetworking (and handoff) is implemented between all these standards. The user may jump from Bluetooth to Wi-Fi at home, then make a transition to a combination of 2G/3G/4G cellular outside the home. All the while, the user never loses his or her connection and, depending on implementation, may be unaware that any hand­over occurred.

1.2 The History of the Wireless Internet

Wireless networking finds its origins in the early 1970s. In 1971, the University of Hawaii introduced the first wireless network of record. The ALOHANET research project interconnected computers on seven University of Hawaii campuses spread across four islands via wireless connectivity. However, wireless networking through much of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s remained alive only due to the efforts of amateur radio hobbyists in the United States and Canada, who developed terminal node controllers (TNCs) that could interconnect various sites around the world. These TNCs were analogous to computer modems. A historic date came in 1985, when the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) authorized the public use of the industrial, scientific, and medical (ISM) frequency bands. This led the way to an increased commercial interest in wireless networking, and in the late 1980s the IEEE 802 Local Area Network (LAN) and Metropolitan Area Network (MAN) Working Group authorized a project for the development of a wireless local area network (WLAN) standard. The resulting 802.11 Working Group published the original 802.11 WLAN standard on November 18, 1997 (see Reference [1]). That original WLAN standard provided raw link data rates of 1 and 2 Mbps. Since that original specification, the IEEE 802.11 Working Group has published thousands of additional specification pages spread over dozens of modifications to their WLAN technology. IEEE 802.11-based WLANs now consistently provide data rates on the order of 300 Mbps with a vastly increased feature set.

Other communities began development activities in parallel. In 1994, Ericsson initiated a project to study the feasibility of a low-power, low-cost radio interface to eliminate cable from mobile phones and their accessories. However, the wider applicability of this technology was quickly realized, and in 1998 the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) was formed; the founding members were Ericsson, Intel, Nokia, and Toshiba. In July 1999, Version 1.0 of the Bluetooth specification was published [2]. Over the next dozen years, the Bluetooth specification experienced numerous revisions (Bluetooth 4.0 was published in 2010 [3]), with thousands of additional pages of technology specification that has produced orders of magnitude improvement in Bluetooth capability over that timeframe.

The IEEE 802.16 Wireless Metropolitan Area Network (WMAN) Working Group met for the first time in 1999, with the goal of developing a standardized approach to point-to-point wireless backhaul communications. In 2001, the original IEEE 802.16 specification was published [4]. In the decade since that original specification, thousands of additional pages of technology specification have been published over numerous technology revisions. The result has been a complete transformation of the technology from a “niche” technology (wireless backhaul) to a legitimate choice as a “4G” technology.

At the same time, cellular telephony has experienced tremendous growth, in terms of its deployment and usage and also in terms of its capabilities. One needs to go back only to 1992 to find a world in which GSM had not yet been deployed outside Europe. Today, GSM spans the globe with over 5 billion subscribers. One needs to travel back in time only a little over a decade to find a world in which second-generation cellular networks are at the cutting edge, with data capabilities comparable to dial-up modems. The past decade has seen multiple generations of technology development, deployment, and adoption that have provided several orders of magnitude of improvement in data rates and general capabilities. Technologies such as Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS), Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA), High-Speed Packet Access (HSPA), CDMA2000, CDMA2000 Evolution–Data Optimized (EV-DO), and Long-Term Evolution (LTE) have brought cellular networks into the forefront of the data revolution and the rise of the wireless Internet. To put this all into perspective, think about it this way: over the course of a decade, cellular data networks have transformed from a dial-up modem to a Wi-Fi network interface card.

Before we move on, let us first take a step back and marvel at the timeline over which this has all taken place. Heinrich Hertz first prod...

Table of contents

• Cover
• IEEE Press
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Dedication
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• About the Authors
• List of Acronyms
• Chapter 1: Introduction
• Chapter 2: The Wireless Ecosystem
• Chapter 3: Wireless Personal Area Networks
• Chapter 4: Wireless Local Area Networks
• Chapter 5: Wireless Metropolitan Area Networks
• Chapter 6: Second-Generation (2G) Cellular Communications
• Chapter 7: Third-Generation (3G) Cellular Communications
• Chapter 8: Fourth-Generation (4G) Cellular Communications
• Chapter 9: Mobile Internetworking
• Chapter 10 : Key Wireless Technology Trends: A Look at the Future
• Chapter 11: Building the Wireless Internet: Putting It All Together
• References
• Index