ABSTRACT
The second half of the twentieth century witnessed enormous transformations in electronic communications, including the development of data transmission over legacy telephone networks, the introduction of packet-data networks, development of high-speed local area networks (LANs), and the development of mobile wireless communications networks, most notably cellular networks, paging systems, and even mobile satellite systems [1,2]. By the start of the current century, cellular and paging services had come into widespread use in support of business communications and personal communications as well. The early analog cellular networks were rapidly supplanted by digital networks affording increased traffic capacity and capable of supporting an expanding array of data-enabled services. In the first decade of the new century, we saw rapidly increasing interest in higher-rate forms of wireless data communication, including multimedia transmission to and from portable phones, and wireless access to the Internet from laptop computers.
