The rationale for this book

Wireless communications seems to be an area of frequent and rapid change. New concepts such as updating a Twitter account from a mobile phone arise and become pervasive in less than a year. New devices like the iPhone capture the public imagination within weeks of being launched and in turn change the relationships between the key players in the industry. Satellite navigation seems to be rapidly incorporated into most mobile devices, which themselves are typically replaced within 18 months. Compared with most other industries and consumer products the rate of change is startling. Even in other industries such as the automotive industry, some of the new features such as adaptive cruise control, advanced satellite navigation and collision-control radars are due to advances in wireless technology.

Understanding what is on the ‘wireless horizon’ – namely what developments are now being considered, developed or trialled – can help make sense of how the wireless world is likely to evolve. This book is about scanning that horizon, identifying the important developments and discussing how they will impact on the world of wireless communications over the next decade or so.

As will be seen in the chapters of this book, simply identifying interesting new technologies is far from sufficient. There have been many ‘interesting’ new wireless technologies that have failed to live up to their initial promise – mesh wireless networking is one – for a variety of reasons, many of which are not technical.