The Wireless Internet Future

Prof. Theodore S. Rappaport

James S. Tucker Professor of Engineering
The Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Virginia Tech
432 New Engineering Building (NEB)
Blacksburg, VA 24061-0350

Tuesday, April 2nd, 4:00 PM, ACES Auditorium

wireless@vt.edu

Abstract

During the 1990's, wireless catapulted from a niche communications business to one of the world's most popular forms of communication, second only to the wired telephone. Today, over 10% of the world's population pays a monthly subscription for wired service, and projections indicate that nearly half of the planet's inhabitants will be using wireless systems by the next decade. Today, in China alone, more cellular phone subscribers are signed up each month than existed throughout the entire world in 1991.

Despite the huge popularity and utility of today's cellular and PCS networks, today's systems were designed before the widespread acceptance of the Internet. Thus, there is significant change-over about to occur in wireless systems throughout the world. As our world becomes more data-centric, we are likely to see the fusion of wireless devices, the Internet, and consumer products such as the television and stereo receiver.

This talk presents a historical view of the tumultuous growth of the wireless sector since its meager beginnings in the 1980's, and provides a glimpse into the competitive pressures, the technical and regulatory challenges, and some of the most promising technologies that we are likely to see in the coming years.

Biography

TBA

A list of Telecommunications and Signal Processing Seminars is available at from the ECE department Web pages under "Seminars". The Web address for the Telecommunications and Signal Processing Seminars is http://signal.ece.utexas.edu/seminars