Wireless Internet Handbook: Technologies, Standards, and Applications (Internet and Communications)

Angel Lozano

14.1 Introduction

With the explosive growth of both the wireless industry and the Internet, it is inevitable that demand for seamless mobile wireless access to the Internet explodes as well. Limited Internet access, at very low speeds, is already available as an enhancement to some second-generation (2G) cellular systems. Third-generation (3G) mobile wireless systems will bring true packet access at significantly higher speeds. ^[1]

Traditional wireless technologies, however, are not particularly well suited to meet the extremely demanding requirements of providing the very high data rates and low cost associated with wired Internet access and the ubiquity, mobility, and portability characteristics of cellular systems. Some fundamental barriers, associated with the nature of the radio channel as well as with limited bandwidth availability at the frequencies of interest, stand in the way. As a result, the cost-per-bit in wireless is much higher than in the wired world, wherein an entire generation of Internet users has grown accustomed to accessing huge volumes of information at very high speed and negligible cost.

^[1]Ojanpera, T. and Prasad, R., An overview of third-generation wireless personal communications: a European perspective, IEEE Personal Commun., 5 (6), 59–65, 1998.