Wireless Books

Barken goes into a reasonable amount of technical detail on this subject. He talks about a popular activity of WarDriving. You can do this, given the information he supplies. Then drive around town and gape at all the open wireless nets you find. A salutary incentive to read the rest of the book if you are setting up your own net. For you can learn how to avoid your net being one of those hapless open specimens.

If you are interested in running a public hot spot, then there is advice proferred specifically for this important case.

Wonderfully informative book, well structured in taking the reader through the development of security for WLAN's. This book could form the framework for a college WLAN Security 101 course syllabus. The book is comprised of 11 Chapters and for all intents and purposes two sections. The first section contains wireless communication security concepts and the state of security in the wireless industry; and the second section contains practical application solutions to secure (or prohibit the use of) the home or office WLAN. The only addition I would like to see in the book, is a glossary of terms.

Wireless networks are popping up everywhere. They are hot for home users and for corporations. They are springing up in coffee shops and book stores. But, anyone can intercept those airwaves so you need to be sure that you know how to secure your wireless network and protect your network and your computers from prying eyes. How Secure Is Your Wireless Network? provides detailed coverage of the available wireless protocols and the pitfalls of each (like interference with common household devices such as cordless phones and baby monitors). This book is a very good resource, but may be a little too technical for the non-computer gurus. Barken does a good job of explaining most of the concepts and steps in relatively plain English though.

(...)

Not being a wireless security expert, I liked this book for a concise intro to wireless technology as well as wireless security.

This relatively thin book provides balanced (in my opinion) coverage of attacks and defenses, enterprise and home. It deals well with high-level and low-level topics (such as various configuration settings). It also described both UNIX/Linux and Windows configuration options and solutions. For example, detailed guidelines for setting up a public hotspot with Linux are provided. The book mixes the wireless technology details with relevant security issues in a single coherent story. It is easy to read and well-written.

Anton Chuvakin, Ph.D., GCIA, GCIH is a Senior Security Analyst with a major information security company. His areas of infosec expertise include intrusion detection, UNIX security, forensics, honeypots, etc. In his spare time, he maintains his security portal info-secure.org

I have 24 network jacks in my house. I don't want to install another network jack ever. Wireless is the answer from this point. The biggest problem with wireless is evident: security.

This is one of numerous books on wireless security. Fortunately, it's a well done book that is not meant to be read by rocket scientists. You know those kinds of books: written by ego-centric techie-geeks who pad their books with technical jargon and useless scientific theory that only people at MIT could understand. Instead, this book is relatively easy to understand as long as you have some knowledge on wireless technology (beyond the fact that there are no wires involved).

One chapter that I found to be very interesting covers the concept of war driving, which is the equivalent of driving around to pick up wireless networks in a neighborhood. It also covers how war drivers leave chalk identification markers for other war drivers to know that a wireless network has been detected.

The book also adequately covers the various types of authentication and encryption that can be used help to secure a wireless network. Once again, the very technical details about how the packets are designed and how the handshaking takes place tends to be a bit dry to those without much technical experience.

Using Windows 2000 Server as the example, the book goes through all of the steps necessary (with a large number of screen shots) to implement a VPN as well as set up an authentication and certificate server for enterprises. Fortunately, the home user is not forgotten. An entire chapter is dedicated to securing and managing a home wireless network; however, all of the home security methods that are covered in this book are Linux-based. Of course, if you're concerned about security, why are you thinking of using Windows in the first place?

The appendices have a lot of background information on radio frequency and antennae types. But the really geeky appendix is how to make a functional wireless antenna out of a Pringles potato chip can.

Overall, this is a good book to have. Obviously, computer technology being what it is means that the book will be obsolete in relatively short order. However, the fact that this book doesn't adhere to the mindless Windows centricity of most books of this kind also helps to give it that little boost of extra value.

I also like this book because it does not have the "I have a master degree so I'm going to speak like I'm addressing only brilliant people so as to impress you and add pages to the book to make it seem more important than it is" attitude. Yes, you should to have a grasp of some of the concepts behind networking protocols to understand this; but the majority of the book is not a difficult read.

If you're thinking of implementing a wireless network, this is a good book to have at your side.

WML (Wireless Markup Language)
WAP (Wireless Application Protocol)
I have not successfully used this animal yet but all the elements are there. I have dabbled in wireless communications for quite some time and never found a need to use WML due to the proprietary nature of all the equipment and communication programs. Now I want to venture over the internet and am going to use my web site. This is just for dabbling purposes. So far the book looks strait forward. There is just a slight terminology difference and syntax difference from HTML.
There is even a "Hello World" application. How appropriate.

This book is a very immature guide. The editing is quite poor too. However if all you want is a fast introduction, this book just might help; please don't mind the headache at the end of the day.

WML is based on XML, and is a content format for devices that implement the WAP Wireless Application Protocol specification, such as mobile phones, and preceded the use of other markup languages now used with WAP, such as XHTML and even standard HTML. WMLScript is the dialect of JavaScript used for WML pages and is part of the WAP.

This little book was quite helpful when WML and WMLScript first entered the scene at the turn of the century. It introduced a new technology in a very simple and accessible way as only O'Reilly and Associates can. However, as processing power in handsets increases, it is likely WML will be phased out in the future. Thus at this point it isn't even worthwhile to learn it. I give this book two stars out of respect to how useful it was when it was first published.

I thought this book was great. It struck the right balance between being a comprehensive primer on the topic, having enough detail if you decide you need it and not going into too much detail about stuff that is dealt with elsewhere - like CGI programming or generating pages from languages like Perl. If you want that then buy Leraning Perl or CGI programming on the World Wide Web.

I thought this book was great. It struck the right balance between being a comprehensive primer on the topic, having enough detail if you decide you need it and not going into too much detail about stuff that is dealt with elsewhere - like CGI programming or generating pages from languages like Perl. If you want that then buy Leraning Perl or CGI programming on the World Wide Web.

Helpful article, that gets down into the real economics of the wireless feature. I definitely agree that Amazon should not start charging heavily for this tool.

If the author feels as passionately as his title implies, then he wouldn't charge people any more than a penny to hear his heartfelt opinion, making it clear that his priority is to help spread the word, rather than making a buck.

What Amazon should do is this:
Each item you purchase from the Kindle store should earn you a certain amount of credit to cover the cost of your wireless access. If there are possibly some Kindle users out there who don't buy anything whatsoever from the Kindle store, and who look to it purely as a clever scheme for finagling a lifetime of free wireless access, (the same kind of diehard sponger who never, ever gives a tip to waiters and waitresses) then those are the only people who should rightfully pay any and all nominal fees that might become an economic necessity if too many hardcore spongers start climbing on board (and weighing down) the Kindle express.

P.S. After posting this review I found out that [currently] Amazon does not allow people to charge less than 99 cents for a Kindle offering (a kindling) and I must confess that makes my initial point uninformed. I think Amazon should make the 99 cent minimum known to all buyers.

i held off buying a kindle because it seemed like a lot of money to read a book {how wrong i was}. after reading the initial revues i found that it was a lot more than that. ive had it now for a couple of months and i dont know how i ever did without it. there are a couple of changes i would like to see. larger area to hold it without changing the page, a much better book cover with stlyus and key stroke chart. i have problems with the internet but not downloading which is amazing, for some reason it takes my user name and password but goes no further {i.e. banks and brokerage acct's}. i cant wait for the improved model and will buy it without hesitation especially if you improve the internet and make it easier to hold. the kindle will revolutionize the world for people like me that love to read and resarch.

Every Kindle owner should read this article and join us in calling on Amazon to keep the basic web browser and the remarkable wireless broadband service that supports, and to keep it free or cheap. There has been plenty of buzz (as well as a few troublesome lines in the terms and conditions) suggesting that these features won't be free forever. Windwalker makes a well-reasoned case that it should suit Amazon's business model and customer-experience goals to maintain the service at no more than a nominal charge, and even suggests that it will be most profitable for Amazon, in the long run, to keep it free. Are you listening, Jeff?

Other articles by Stephen Windwalker about the Kindle and related issues:

How to Use the Amazon Kindle for Email & Other Cool Tricks: Read and Answer Email Anywhere, Anytime on the Amazing Amazon Kindle (The Amazing Amazon Kindle)

20 Effective Steps to Publishing a Kindle Edition of Your Book or Document: How to Connect Your Amazon Kindle Book with Readers (Publish and Market Your Book on Amazon Kindle)

Selling Used Books Online: The Complete Guide to Bookselling at Amazon's Marketplace and Other Online Sites (Harvard Perspectives in Entrepreneurship)

Kindle is an experiment and those who want to participate in it pay a substantial upfront charge. Anyone who thinks it's too expensive, too constricting or too risky can wait on the sidelines and see. What bothers me is that so many people are evaluating this product using either the paper book, or their own wish list of features as a standard. I personally prefer to read books on my Kindle rather than on a computer or on paper.

I have accumulated literally a ton of books in my lifetime and have no desire to add any more to my collection, unless it's what I consider a collectible, in which case I'll buy it in paper. Incidentally, I have reached the same conclusion about my music collection. The iPod is just what I need, so I use it. I don't begrudge Apple or Amazon the fees or restrictions, because they offer a quality product and service for the price.

I have a laptop that I use to access to video clips, play DVDs, read blogs, news, search via Google and use email. I don't see any advantage to using a Kindle for any that. Adding a fraction of an ounce or a penny of cost to the Kindle in order to add any of those features would disappoint me.

Amazon obviously put a lot of though and research into this venture and I hope that it works out for them and for us. If they have to make adjustments as time goes on so be it. Like Apple, they provide an excellent product at an initially high price. In Kindle's case I estimate that I'll get my money's worth over about a two-year period. Users' mileage will vary. Similarly, my five year old PowerBook G4 doesn't owe me a penny. And Amazon, it seems to me, is closer to the ideal of excellent service and support for a reasonable cost than Apple. Let's hope it stays that way.

Finally, anyone who feels that people should be able to drop their computer's internet access because they own a Kindle are to me a little off base. It's for reading text. Increasing the list of Kindle books, working out a solution to the PDF problem and the next page button are what interest me most.

Examples in this book are just great. I have built my own application based on a couple of them. It really have helped me and guided me through step by step. Now I know how to do it on my own.

Thanks guys.

I thoroughly examined this book and found that there is not a single piece of information in this book that cannot be found on internet in matter of seconds. My advice is: save your money

The best thing about this book is the sample mobile database the authors have-just that is worth the price. Thanks guys.

I was always intrigued about the ways to make those small pocket size device to do what I want and I have believed that in order to make the programs for the Pocket PC's you have to be software "guru". This book was eye opener for me. I now know "how to" develop portable databases in efficient and professional way with ease. I would recommend this book to everyone who plan to develop PALM or Pocket PC based applications that will utilize major database engines.

There are many reasons that drove my consultant orthopaedic surgeon to buy a handheld. Shutting me up was perhaps the most important. It was a different set of reasons that made him addicted to his machine. Keeping his golf scores on his database was certainly the most important.

And so it is for most clinicians - handwriting recognition, voice recording and digital photography make PDA devices cool. But storing data makes them useful.

Furthermore PDA adoption is entering the next phase. Rather than individual purchases by enthusiastic individual, healthcare organizations are buying devices for entire departments. These devices are picked for their ability to integrate into existing IT infrastructure, and coincide with the rollout of wireless networks.

So Building PDA Databses is an important and timely book.
The book begins with a good introduction to handheld technology, database theory, and data warehousing methodology. Naturally this cannot be exhaustive, but it makes for a usable and approachable text.

The authors then cover the products of several major database providers, including AppForge's MobileVB, Sybase's iAnywhere and IBM's DB2. This list should tip you off to the scale of projects suggested - big. This is not surprising given the focus of their previous book, WAP Integration: Professional Developer's Guide. Laberge and Vujosevic are experienced and expert in large corporate environments.

This explains one of the weaknesses of the PDA coverage in book - it is rather biased towards the Microsoft, praising the iPaq for features that have been standard in Palm-compatibles for a long time and with better implementation. They also do not mention Satellite Forms, or HanDBase, perhaps the leading environments for medium-scale and small-scale projects respectively.

On the other hand if the reader is interested in large-scale projects, the book becomes essential. The description of each database product's feature set is useful for purchasing decisions. And the source code in the tutorials is enough to get the experienced developer going pretty quickly. It is thus best for informaticians, IT managers and software developers rather than clinicians. As the UK's healthcare Trusts become more ambitious with their IT spending, the book should help with mobile access to everything from patient details to golf scores...

takes such a complex topic and makes it easy. super valuable for anyone in wireless.

An excellent guide to how IS-136 really works. Found it very helpful in understanding the basics of the architecture. Love those books by Adrian Smith. So clear and lucid.

The two stars are to give credit to the authors for an otherwise useful work. However, this format is unacceptable. I'll be pursuing a refund (yeah, right).

Here's how it went:

1) Go through the hassle of booting a Windows box.
2) Download and install the Adobe eBook reader (15 minutes, reboot)
3) Download the book itself.
4) Can't print a page. Can't copy a page to write on.
5) The reader application itself seems weird, and is not integrated with the Windows GUI very well.
6) 45 seconds and ten page flips later, "Application Adobe eBook has crashed due to an unhandled error."

So, I ... have nothing to show for it. You'd be wise to learn from my mistake.

My advice: kill a tree and actually get access to the information you paid for. The Adobe solution is [not good].

If you need to know Is-136, this is the book. Very good done!

I can see that this book is very interesting. It has very important information that i don't find in other books. I need informatio about this item, but in my country we don`t have blibliograpy. Thanks.

But if you are coming in to networking not knowing anyhting, it can help.

Excellent for newcomers or if u want to get up to date in networking technologies. Is a good comprehensive guide that Starts with the basic precepts of networks, the book explores protocols, hardware and software components, and the unique jargon of networking. Concepts are explained clearly and simply, without assuming an extensive understanding of network internals. The glossary provides a quick reference for unfamiliar terms. Among the many topics new to this fourth edition are: wireless networks, cable modem systems, virtual private networks, IP security, asset management, and XML. Other key subjects include improving network performance, anytime/anywhere access, and interoperability.

Now in an updated and expanded fifth edition, Network Tutorial: A Complete Introduction To Networks by Steven Steinke (with the assistance of the editors of "Network Magazine") is a "user friendly" introduction and reference to network technology, written especially for managers and executives seeking to update their knowledge on the latest challenges of evolving network infrastructures. Individual chapters cogently address such topics as physical layer protocols, data-link protocols, network hardware and software, security and backup systems, and much, much more in this involved and extensive resource filled with diagrams and extensive description.

After reading this tutorial, you will learn every thing you need to know about the basics of networking. Author Steve Steinke has done an excellent job of helping you to explore proper punch-down procedures; understand the different types of cabling used in networks; learn how to configure Windows for a network; discover LANs, MANs, and WANs; identify the various types of networks; explore network cabling; discover typologies used in networking; examine types of network operating systems; discover network protocols and how they "talk" to each other; define ethernet and explore how it uses a system known as CSMA/CD; identify seven layers of communication within a network; and, examine smart modems, IDSNs, DSLs, and cable modems; discover bridges, routers, and switches. In addition, the author will lead you through hands-on activities such as: setting up a peer-to-peer network; building a CAT5 cable; and testing a CAT5 cable with a cable tester.

For example, the author begins by with a thorough discussion of network protocols. Next, he goes on to explain the physical layer protocol by touching on encoding, modulation and the physical layer. Then, the author covers data-link protocols by looking at all of the topologies in detail. Next, the author discusses network and transport layer protocols which includes the TCP/IP protocol suite. Then, Steinke examines application layer protocols and how ISPs provide Internet and WWW services. Next, Steinke covers all types of network hardware like cabling fiber optics and wireless LANs. This is followed by a general discussion of network software. Then, the author explains the concept of internetworking. Network and Systems management are covered next. Finally, Steinke concludes with an outstanding detailed examination of network security and backup systems.

The book covers a LOT of topics but it assumes too much. Even on Chapter 1 the author discusses topics that I didnt know about. Name of the book is "Network Tutorial"; bad name. I would call it Networks Unleashed. It also seems a bit outdated to me, the latest edition was released in Jan/2003, yet there is too much talk about Windows 3.1, OS/2 and NT. Linux and XP are rarely mentioned. I dont recommend it, its good but not worth the price tag.

I received a softcover version of the book from Amazon when I ordered the hardcover copy for $76.00.

It is a very nice book that gives you a good background about simulation of communication systems which is very important for communication engineers to have good knowledge of. What makes this book be very valuable in my point of view is that it deals with a topic that there are relatively not too many good resources or documentations on the internet to learn about. So, I think you must buy one. But, I wash that the codes were written on a CD that comes with the book.

This book really gave me a joy of learning what simulation is. Cool...

This book is good for the beginners who need to understand the basic principle of communications. The basic matlab source will be usefull to understand the concept. But this book doesnot good for advance reserach. we can not find any detail principle of OFDM, CDMA or other multiple access technique that are better and close to the application. Therefore, this book may be (only) better for the undergraduate student but not for advance wireless communications research.

I started from zero knowledge on simulations of communication systems, and after reading 95% of the content, I realize that this book is a treasure! With its lecture note style, the book is so readable and accessible that a beginner would have no difficulty in paving through the so-called "simulation theory." Another nice thing of this book is that it comes with MATLAB codes that actually run correctly!

In sum, I really like this book, and I would suggest this book as the first book to anyone who wants to begin learning communication system simulations. Another book "Simulation of Communication Systems" by Jeruchim is also recommended for a further reading after finishing this book.

No single text could possible address all of the complexities of RF design for wireless systems, but RF/Microwave Circuit Design for Wireless Applications comes close. The text covers the design and specification of all major RF portions in a wireless system. The book contains only six chapters and two appendices, but these are information-packed chapters that in essence could serve as the basis for separate multi-day technical workshops.

Other reviews (July 2000 Microwaves & RF and June 2000 Wireless Systems Design, among others) have provided broad overviews of the book's contents. Highlights not specifically mentioned in these general reviews include:

Chapter 1 (Introduction to Wireless Circuit Design): Impact of propagation on system performance (multi-pass) and design; analyses of large signal handling; testing requirements for wireless systems.

Chapter 2 (Models for Active Devices): Calculation of IMD contributed by tuning diodes; overview of current BJT technologies; FET families and the key advantages and disadvantages of various FET technologies and comparison to SiGe transistors.

Chapter 3 (Amplifier Design with BJTs and FETs: Small signal to power amplifier design, including the calculation of heatsink requirements and evaluation of adjacent-channel power ratio (ACPR) and stability performance and includes the use of distributed elements. This is by far the largest chapter in the book, essentially equaling the information found in some texts dedicated to amplifier design.

Chapter 4 (Mixer Design): Extensive CAD analysis of passive and active mixer topologies, with many applications.

Chapter 5 (RF/Wireless Oscillators): Discrete and RFIC oscillator circuits with many examples; oscillator noise reduction through active noise feedback.

Chapter 6 (Wireless Synthesizers): Fractional-N applications and principles, including the importance of reference purity and techniques for suppressing discrete spurious outputs.

In terms of information per dollar, the book represents a real value. Many texts are available on various aspects of wireless RF engineering, usually on narrowly defined topics. RF/Microwave Circuit Design for Wireless Applications is the only text that provides a complete education for wireless circuit designers, by covering wireless RF engineering from semiconductor through system levels. It can be used on many different levels, from basic tutorial to advanced design concepts, depending upon the background of the reader. The book should be particularly useful for those designers tasked with learning more about an unfamiliar portion of the RF signal chain, such as antenna designers who need to know more about low-noise amplifiers.

(relayed from Dr. R. Schalter, Germany) While most two-way radio applications during the past years have been located in the frequency range of 150 MHz to 450 MHz (2 m to 70 cm), the demand for multichannel applications has pushed up both the operating frequency and the number of users per channel. Standard applications involves narrowband frequency modulation (NBFM), and therefore, the linearity and efficiency of the transmitter portion was less of a problem. The class C operation for FM provided a higher efficiency and the blocking of the adjacent channel was mostly determined by the receiver's local oscillator. Today's wireless applications are using combinations of the time-division multiplex, code-division multiplex and other complex waveforms where the requirements for linearity of the transmitter are much more stringent, while the digital coding of the transmitter signals make the design of the receiver much easier as the signal density is not very high. Traditional books did a very good job of describing these single-signal operations, while to look into all the complicated details of wireless applications, one had to find a collection of many recently published papers. I am, therefore, happy to applaud the recent book by Ulrich L. Rohde and David P. Newkirk, which is the only comprehensive study guide that covers all necessary topics very well.

After the introduction to wireless systems and their testing in Chapter 1, the authors in Chapter 2 provide an updated overview of current active designs neatly separating diodes, bipolar transistors, FETs, and even addressing parameter extractions. Most manufacturers published only limited information on the semiconductor devices and yet small power consumption and high linearity are the key issues.

Building upon this, Chapter 3 provides a variety of topics about the amplifier design, both small and large signal, and a wealth of information as to critical design.

Chapter 4, Mixer Design, is extremely well organized and a lot of forgotten information is being made available again. As in the previous chapters, we find a good balance between mathematical and practical applications.

Chapter 5, Oscillators, is probably Rohde's pet area, providing the most comprehensive summary of oscillator designs, and many of his presentations from international conferences are reflected in this. It also sheds light on both linear and nonlinear oscillator analysis. This chapter has good theoretical information for everybody.

Chapter 6, which deals with wireless synthesizers, reviews the required design procedures and lists many off-the-shelf IC-built synthesizers, as well as very high performance frequency synthesizers. The latest fractional-N-division synthesizer theory receives a detailed discussion.

The two appendices are custom tailored to obtain information about microwave transistors and are a welcomed addition to the previous chapters. Their value lies in the insight given on how to characterize modern semiconductors.

I have spent many hours with this book and its reading was similar to starting with a high tension mystery novel and it became almost impossible to put down.

I recommend this book highly to anyone who enjoys modern technology. It has become my favorite.

Dr. Robert Schalter Munich, Germany

This is the type of book commonly published by Artech House or IEEE Press. It is as if a person who was highly skilled in writing liberal arts prose finds a file cabinet abandoned by a retired engineering manager. The file cabinet is filled with a lifetime eclectic collection of magazine articles, photo copies of sections of books, and reports from subordinates, all of which were never read by the manager because of time restraints. The liberal arts person shuffles the contents together into a book without really understanding what is written. This book is strewn with tables and illustrations which are never referenced in the text. Most of the illustrations are multiple generation photocopies. Equations contain undefined terms. Critical design issues are passed over with one sentence while there is a several page mathematical derivation of the DC output impedance of a BJT. The author infers that it is not necessary to understand what you do as long as you can get the answer from a CAD program. The book perpetuates the urban legend that Gilbert invented a mixer. This topology goes back to at least 1920 and had been implemented with relays, vacuum tubes, specialized vacuum tubes, and discrete transistors. The author references Gilbert's paper which references the discrete transistor version as prior art and then shows how to make a pre-distortion circuit to add to this mixer to obtain a four quadrant linear multiplier. So much for not reading your references. Finally, the book does not explain anything very clearly. people who are not already skilled in RF will not gain any design ability from this book. They will however get a false sense of skill level that will allow them to do basic, simple designs, but not designs that push technology. That is, they could do a day late dollar short design of consumer products, but not military products.

This comment was added in 2007. It seems that Artech House and the IEEE press have become more careful in what they publish. Most of the books published recently by them are edifying to read and I have purchased and enjoyed several of them.

RF/Microwave Circuit Design for Wireless Applications

Reviewer: R Conrad from Connecticut, USA

RF/Microwave Circuit Design for Wireless Applications is a veritable encyclopedia for those new to the field of circuit design for wireless applications. The text introduces the reader to the impact of real world operating conditions on wireless system performance as a prelude to thorough reviews of active and passive devices and applications.

The book includes many illustrations of circuits typically found in wireless systems. The text provides proven design techniques and practical circuit-design examples based on a family of linear and nonlinear computer-aided-design (CAD) tools from Ansoft Cop. (Pittsburgh, PA).

One of the many highlights of the book is a software simulation example that accurately predicts the "real world" performance of a QPSK power amplifier (on pages 424 and 425). In addition, the treatment of push-pull power amplifier design and the analysis and application of 3-dB hybrids and Wilkinson dividers and combiners couplers are presented thoroughly and professionally.

In light of the quality of this book, I found the review titled "form without content" troubling. The author appears to resent the success of Dr. Rohde's fine career and many well-written books. It is also difficult to understand how 18 of 20 individuals found such a negative and unconstructive review helpful. More likely, the author of that negative review was his/her own best reader, and was simply responding to his or her own review in an attempt to asperse the author. Finally, one of the on-line purchasers of the book was one of the original founders of Sciteq Electronics (San Diego, CA), a firm associated with the development of the direct digital synthesizer (DDS). This alone is a strong testimony to the value of the book.

The 900+ pages of this new book by Ulrich L. Rohde and David P. Newkirk covers a wide range of topics related to its title. It should serve as a valuable reference to all engineers working in the field of wireless systems and its related components. It also provides extensive sets of relevant up-to-date references and related patents.

The book begins with a quick overview of the radio channel and the various modulation schemes used in wireless systems, providing useful definitions of commonly used terminology. Then, switching from system level, the authors quickly progress to components and building block discussions for the rest of the book.

A detailed review of active device models (large signal and small) for various diodes, bipolar and Si and GaAs field-effect transistors are followed by SPICE-, and noise-parameter extractions, including a new modeling approach for low-voltage operation.

The most extensive chapter (260 pages) of the book deals with design considerations of RF/MW linear, low-noise, high gain and (nonlinear) power amplifiers. Several illustrative examples are given, including a wide range of commercially available device and amplifier datasheets. This chapter also covers AGC amplifiers and voltage-tuned filters.

The last three chapters cover mixers, oscillators and synthesizers and their related CAD methodologies. The Ansoft Serenade programs is used for all illustrative examples. The book concludes with two Appendixes: one discussing HBT models, parameter extraction and validation and another on multiharmonic load-pull techniques and their applications in power amplifier and frequency multiplier designs.

Enjoyed the book immensly. Author(s) do an excellent job in outlining the issues and providing the necessary background as to how and why things developed and insight on decision points and future offerings. Author did not bite on the hardware red herring but stayed the course on issues and requirements. Only crticism was over marketing of Broadbeam middleware woven into middleware discussion. This is easily excused when compared with other "white paper" type offerings. Very easy reading, recommend for technical and non technical alike.

I recently read "Wireless Data for the Enterprise" and found it well written and informative. In addition to the history of wireless data and a section on determining whether the wireless approach is right for an organization, I enjoyed the case histories. The writers have also included practical tips on choosing mobile devices, network providers and developing wireless applications. Finally, for those like myself who aren't "techies," it includes a handy glossary of terms at the end for reference purposes. Most books written by business executives tend to be dull or promotional, but I found this enjoyable reading and informative.

Wireless Data for the Enterprise is an invaluable resource to any manager looking to add wireless functionality to their organization. The book addresses both the business and technical aspects of identifying, developing and implementing wireless data solutions to improve the productivity of a mobile workforce. Unlike many books that tend to deal with the subject on only a conceptual level, Faigen and Fridman discuss the key issues facing wireless applications from a real world perspective, providing numerous cases studies and useful project execution guides. I would highly recommend this book to anyone considering undertaking a wireless project in their own organization, or who just wants to develop a better understanding of the application of wireless data communications in general.

When I opened the cover of this book I knew very little about wireless data, which I had to rectify as I contemplated deploying it for my business. I forced myself to start reading and by page two knew that I had picked a real winner. It's a technology book that reads like a novel. The graphics, case studies, and elegant prose make it one of the best business books I've read in a long time. It took me through the issues, steps, and considerations I will face in adopting the technology, making no attempt to sugar-coat the challenge, but presenting enough success stories to make me understand that it is doable.

I picked up this book because my company is looking at ways to use wireless technology as a business tool with our field sales reps.

Despite the hype and promise that this book claims, I can honestly say that it was a complete waste of time and money.

Try reading Cap Gemini Ernst & Young Guide to Wireless Enterprise Application Architecture by Korna or Wireless Internet Enterprise Applications by Sharma

I thought this book was very imformative and helped me understand how I could use my mobile phone in other ways. Certainly the wireless companies do not come anywhere close to properly educating people about other uses for the phone then calling. Thank you.

I have always been intrigued with text messaging, but now I actually understand how it all works. This is an excellent book to learn a lot about wireless networks and all of the nuances of this new type of communications.

Texting is very much demystified for me. I can't wait to try all of the different types of services and capabilities that there is out there.

Well worth the money.

I was disappointed that this book included practically nothing on the actual SMSC handshaking and protocols, nor about actual SMS, EMS, or MMS specifications, etc.. The book seems geared very much towards management types who are trying to decide whether or not to implement mobile messaging in their business strategy. The history of SMS and case studies of successful text messaging business implementations get focus. It is not a practical reference for an actual developer and provides next to nothing in technical information.

This book was written in a hurry to catch the SMS wave and it stinks from it. Many chapters were written by different people with different styles of writing, some more eloquent than others. Consequenty it makes for bad reading.

It contains numerous inaccuracies and extensive reptition. Clearly nobody did a proper job editing this book in its entirety to create a common style of writing or at a minium, technical and commercial accuracy. Donald J. Longueuil did himself a disservice by putting his name to this.

Each of the authors has their own bias (based upon who they work for) and this comes out clearly in the book. Thiis book esentially becomes a series of sales pitches, rather than a truely independant overview of the SMS/EMS/MMS market.

All in all very disappointing and a complete waste of money.

It also contains a great deal of useful information on mobile payment services.