The Evolving Wireless Landscape

The level of innovation within wireless technology today is, frankly, rather amazing. Wireless is, after all, an old field that can trace its roots back to the (at least somewhat apocryphal) tale of Benjamin Franklin and his kite. Wireless pioneers Faraday, Maxwell, Tesla and Marconi all completed their work before the turn of the 20th century. One might expect that an area of scientific endeavor this mature should see little today that's truly new.

But the case is quite the opposite. For much of its history, wireless has been concerned with long range and limited throughput-examples include shortwave radio, broadcasting, (wireless) Morse code and analog voice. However, as we all know from what's happened in wired networks over the past 15 years, today's theme is broadband-higher data rates, capable of carrying many simultaneous interactions, increasingly in support of voice and video applications. Indeed, wireless technologies have made major progress in this quest for broadband.