Broadband Wireless Access And Local Networks: Mobile WiMAX and Wi-Fi

July 7, 2008

By Byeong Gi Lee. Sunghyun Choi

Broadband Wireless Access And Local Networks: Mobile WiMAX and Wi-Fi is a brand new book published by Artech House. A long time publisher of wireless and related books, Artech is doing a great job of finding authors with the latest knowledge on wireless topics and quickly getting books into the hands of those who need them. There are not many books on WiMAX yet anyway, especially the Mobile version. And while Wi-Fi books abound, this one is an updated look at this ubiquitous wireless technology.

The book has 18 chapters and 618 pages—so it is no lightweight. The first 10 chapters cover WiMAX and related topics. Chapter 1 is a great summary of basic wireless communications with a summary of the 802.16 and 802.11 standards. I particularly liked the spectrum section that summarizes the different places in the spectrum where WiMAX and Wi-Fi can reside. It is hard to dig out that information for yourself. The two technologies are compared and contrasted here too.

Chapters 2 through 10 dig into the complexities of WiMAX. I particularly liked chapters 2 and 4 as they helped me get my mind around OFDMA. That access mode is being used more and more and you will be seeing more of it as WiMAX takes off and the 4G cellular standard Long Term Evolution (LTE) comes online in the coming years. All the chapters have good detail and summarize the key points—which kept me from having to read hundreds of mind-numbing pages of the standard itself. Another good section, chapter 9, covers multiple-in-multiple-out (MIMO) which is central to WiMAXs ultimate success. Finally, chapter 10 covers WiBro, the Korean cousin to WiMAX.

The remaining chapters cover 802.11 and related issues. They are a good summation of this heavy favorite in the wireless world. Chapter 15 on security does cover the more recent 802.11i standard, as well as some of the other authentication and security standards used. The 802.11s standard on mesh networking is introduced as is the 802.11k standard on radio resource measurements.

Overall, this book is a recommended reference book if you are working with these standards.

Artech House
www.artechhouse.com

About the Author

Lou Frenzel | Technical Contributing Editor

Lou Frenzel is a Contributing Technology Editor for Electronic Design Magazine where he writes articles and the blog Communique and other online material on the wireless, networking, and communications sectors. Lou interviews executives and engineers, attends conferences, and researches multiple areas. Lou has been writing in some capacity for ED since 2000.

Lou has 25+ years experience in the electronics industry as an engineer and manager. He has held VP level positions with Heathkit, McGraw Hill, and has 9 years of college teaching experience. Lou holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Houston and a master’s degree from the University of Maryland. He is author of 28 books on computer and electronic subjects and lives in Bulverde, TX with his wife Joan. His website is www.loufrenzel.com.