It is commonly accepted today that optical fiber communications have revolutionized
telecommunications. Indeed, dramatic changes have been induced in the way we interact
with our relatives, friends, and colleagues: we retrieve information, we entertain and
educate ourselves, we buy and sell, we organize our activities, and so on, in a long list
of activities. Optical fiber systems initially allowed for a significant curb in the cost of
transmission and later on they sparked the process of a major rethinking regarding some,
generation-old, telecommunication concepts like the (OSI)-layer definition, the lack of
cross-layer dependency, the oversegmentation and overfragmentation of telecommunica-
tions networks, and so on.
This books presents the research work of COST 273 Towards Mobile Broadband Multimedia
Networks, hence, it reports on the work performed and on the results achieved within the project
by its participants. The material presented here corresponds to the results obtained in four years
of collaborative work by more than 350 researchers from 137 institutions (universities, operators,
manufacturers, regulators, independent laboratories and others – a full list is provided in Appendix
B) belonging to 29 countries (mainly European, but also from Asia and North America) in the area of
mobileradio. Theobjectiveofpublishingtheseresultsasabookisessentiallytomakethemavailable
to an audience wider than the project. In fact, it just follows a ‘tradition’ of previous COST Actions
in this area of telecommunications, i.e. COST 207, 231 and 259.
This chapter provides extensive coverage of existing mobile wireless technologies. Much of the
emphasis is on the highly anticipated 3G cellular networks and widely deployed wireless local
area networks (LANs), as the next-generation smart phones are likely to offer at least these two
types of connectivity. Other wireless technologies that either have already been commercialized or
are undergoing active research and standardization are introduced as well. Because standardization
plays a crucial role in developing a new technology and a market, throughout the discussion
standards organizations and industry forums or consortiums of some technologies are introduced.
In addition, the last section of this chapter presents a list of standards in the wireless arena.
In the field of electricity, electrostatics, and circuit theory, there are many discoveries and
accomplishments that have lead to the foundation of the field of electrostatic discharge
(ESD) phenomenon. Below is a chronological list of key events that moved the field of
electrostatics forward:
