Wireless Communications & Networks
- Book Review,
by William Stallings
From Book News, Inc.
This textbook covers key networking topics, including technology and architecture, network design, types of networks, and applications. Chapters focus on technical matters, wireless communication technology, wireless networking, and wireless LANs. Appendices discuss standards and standard-setting organizations, traffic analysis, fourier analysis, and data link control protocol. Cellular networks, spread spectrum, error correction techniques, propagation, and transmission receive special attention. Stallings is a consultant and author.Copyright © 2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Book Info
Stallings presents thorough, up to date introductions to every key aspect of wireless communications and networking: technology, architecture, types of wireless networks, design approaches, applications, standards, and more. Softcover.
From the Back Cover
Best-selling author, William Stallings, gives an up-to-date coverage of both wireless communications and wireless networks with new expanded coverage of Wi-Fi and WiMax. Designed for students and professionals, this text explores the key networking topics with a unique approach covering: technology and architecture, network design approaches, and types of networks and applications. DISTINGUISHING KEY FEATURES Provides an entire chapter on spread spectrum, which is pervasive in wireless technology today. Also provides an entire chapter on satellite communications. This topic remains an important area within wireless communications. Thorough coverage of cordless systems. This is an interesting and important new area that extends the traditional cordless telephone technology over greater distances and for greater numbers of users. Extensive coverage of fixed wireless access, also known as wireless local loop, and IEEE 802.16 standards. This has become a very important area for bringing high-speed access to subscribers in place of land lines. Devotes a whole chapter on Mobile IP Wireless Application Protocol (WAP). Wireless Internet and Web access are driving forces in the evolution of wireless technology and are a must have. Complete coverage of Wireless LANs, including IEEE 802.11 and Bluetooth. This is a broad and important area, and the book devotes three chapters to this realm.
About the Author
WILLIAM STALLINGS has made a unique contribution to understanding the broad sweep of technical developments in computer networking and computer architecture. He has authored 17 titles, plus revised editions, for a total of 41 books on various aspects of these subjects. Dr. Stallings has seven times received the award for best Computer Science Textbook of the Year from the Text and Academic Authors Association. He has created and maintains the Computer Science Student Resource Site at WilliamStallings.com/StudentSupport.html. He is also an independent consultant whose clients have included computer and networking manufacturers and customers, software development firms, and leading-edge government research institutions. Dr. Stallings holds a Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from M.I.T. and a B.S. from Notre Dame in electrical engineering.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
OBJECTIVES Wireless technology has become the most exciting area in telecommunications and networking. The rapid growth of mobile telephone use, various satellite services, and now the wireless Internet and wireless LANs are generating tremendous changes in telecommunications and networking. This book explores the key topics in the field in the following general categories: Technology and architecture: There is a small collection of ingredients that serves to characterize and differentiate wireless communication and networking, including frequency band, signal encoding technique, error correction technique, and network architecture. Network type: This book covers the important types of wireless networks, including satellite, cellular, fixed wireless access, and wireless LANs. Design approaches: The book examines alternative design choices and assesses their relative merits. Applications: A number of key technologies and applications have been developed on top of wireless infrastructures, especially mobile IP and wireless Web access. Throughout, there is an emphasis on both technology and on standards. The book provides a comprehensive guide to understanding specific wireless standards, such as those promulgated by ITU and IEEE 802, as well as standards developed by other organizations. This emphasis reflects the importance of such standards in defining the available products and future research directions in this field. INTENDED AUDIENCE This book is intended for a broad range of readers who will benefit from an understanding of wireless communications and networks, and the associated technologies. This includes students and professionals in the fields of data processing and data communications, designers and implementers, and data communication and networking customers and managers. For the professional interested in this field, the book serves as a basic reference volume and is suitable for self-study. As a textbook, it is suitable for an advanced undergraduate or graduate course. It covers the material in the CS332 Wireless and Mobile Computing advanced course of the joint ACM/IEEE Computing Curricula 2001. The chapters and parts of the book are sufficiently modular to provide a great deal of flexibility in the design of courses. PLAN OF THE BOOK The book treats a number of advanced topics and provides a brief survey of the required elementary topics. For the reader with little or no background in data communications, Part One and the appendices cover a number of basic topics. The book is divided into four parts: Technical Background Wireless Communication Technology Wireless Networking Wireless LANs In addition, the book includes an extensive glossary, a list of frequently used acronyms, and a bibliography. Each chapter includes problems, suggestions for further reading, and a list of relevant Web sites. Each chapter also includes, for review, a list of key words and a number of review questions. INTERNET SERVICES FOR INSTRUCTORS AND STUDENTS There is a Web site for this book that provides support for students and instructors. The site includes links to other relevant sites, transparency masters of figures and tables from the book in PDF (Adobe Acrobat) format, PowerPoint slides, and sign-up information for the book's Internet mailing list. The Web page is at WilliamStallings.com/WirelessWireless2e.html; see Section 1.8 for more information. An Internet mailing list has been set up so that instructors using this book can exchange information, suggestions, and questions with each other and with the author. As soon as typos or other errors are discovered, an errata list for this book will be available at WilliamStallings.com. I also maintain the Computer Science Student Resource Site at WilliamStallings.com/StudentSupport.html. WHAT'S NEW IN THE SECOND EDITION In the three years since the first edition of this book was published, the field has seen continued innovations and improvements. In this new edition, I try to capture these changes while maintaining a broad and comprehensive coverage of the entire field. To begin the process of revision, the first edition of this book was extensively reviewed by a number of professors who teach the subject. The result is that, in many places, the narrative has been clarified and tightened, and illustrations have been improved. Also, a number of new "field-tested" problems have been added. Beyond these refinements to improve pedagogy and user friendliness, the technical content of the book has been updated throughout, to reflect the ongoing changes in this exciting field. Every chapter has been revised. Highlights include the following: Minimum shift keying: MSK is a form of modulation that is found in some mobile communications systems. This material is now covered. CDMA2000: The first 3G (third generation) wireless system to be deployed commercially is known as CDMA2000 1xEV DO. A discussion of this important standard is included. WiMAX and IEEE 802.16x: Work on wireless local loop has evolved, including the introduction of the WiMAX specification to provide interoperability specifications for 802.16. Chapter 11 includes new material on 802.16, including the recent 802.16a standard. Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing: The popularity of OFDM is increasing and is used in a variety of local and wide area wireless standards. The material on OFDM has been updated and expanded. Wi-Fi and IEEE 802.11: The coverage of 802.11a and 802.11b has been expanded significantly, and treatment of 802.11g had been added. Data scrambling: Scrambling is a technique often used to improve signal quality. An overview of data scrambling is provided in Chapter 14. Wi-Fi protected access: WPA has replaced Wireless Equivalent Privacy (WEP) as the specification for providing security in wireless LANs. Chapter 14 provides coverage of WPA. IEEE 802.15 and personal area networks: The initial 802.15.1 standard provides an official specification for Bluetooth, which was covered in the first edition as well as this edition. This edition also covers two new standards: the 802.15.3 high-speed wireless PAN standard and the 802.15.4 low-speed wireless PAN standard. Trellis-coded modulation: TCM is a technique that provides for efficient use of bandlimited channels; it is described in Chapter 15. In addition, throughout the book, virtually every topic has been updated to reflect the developments in standards and technology that have occurred since the publication of the first edition.
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