Business and Technology Issues in Wireless Networking

Abstract

A major development in the enabling technologies for mobile computing and commerce is the evolution of wireless communications standards from the IEEE 802 series on local and metropolitan area networks. The rapid market growth and successful applications of 802.11, WiFi, is likely to be followed by similar commercial profitability of the emerging standards, 802.16e, WiMAX, and 802.20, WiMobile, both for network operators and users. This article describes the capabilities of these three standards and provides a comparative evaluation of features that impact their applicability to mobile computing and commerce. In particular, comparisons include the range, data rate in Mbps and ground speed in Km/h plus the availability of quality of service for voice and multimedia applications.