Advanced Wireless: WiFi and Beyond

A Half-Day Seminar

Jim Mollenauer
Technical Strategy Associates
 

This tutorial is intended to provide a comparison of current technologies and a description of emerging standards which will be deployed over the next several years.  Initially we will look at current technologies like second- and third-generation mobile phones and WiFi, with a glance back at the ancestry of these facilities.  In addition, larger-scale (metropolitan) networks and home networks, including Bluetooth, will be discussed.  Advanced techniques such as OFDMA modulation and space-time processing will also be touched on.

New standards are likely to represent the next generation of wireless networks.  These will include the IEEE 802.16-2004 standard for fixed metropolitan wireless, a revision newly approved by the IEEE Standards Board.  The impact of the WiMAX Forum in support of this technology will be examined.  New technologies aimed at in-home usage will be covered; these include ultra-wideband at the high end of the speed spectrum and Zigbee at the low end.

We will go on to mobility issues and to technologies that have not quite emerged yet, but which should have considerable impact in the future.  These topics include the evolution of the mobile-phone network to a mixed-use network with relatively high data speeds, and to data-oriented networks.  The latter include IEEE 802.16e, the mobile version of 802.16, and to the rival 802.20 effort within the IEEE 802 LAN/MAN framework.  Finally there will be forecasts of how the wireless field will play out over the next few years.

Biography:

Jim Mollenauer received his PhD from the University of California at Berkeley.  He spent 17 years at Bell Laboratories in physics research and communication system development and has held positions in Motorola Codex and Prime Computer.  He architected one of the earliest Ethernet switches at Artel Communications in 1990.  As a consultant, his design projects have included terrestrial and satellite wireless systems.  Jim has broad experience in standards, having chaired the IEEE 802.6 Metropolitan Area Networks committee for twelve years and participated in several IEEE and ETSI standardization committees.  He was a founding member of the IEEE 802.16 committee for broadband wireless networks and the 802.20 group for broadband mobile networks.