Third Generation Wireless Information Networks

by David Goodman (Editor), Sanjiv Nanda (Editor)

Rutgers University launched WINLAB in 1989, just as the communications industry, the Federal government, and the financial community in the United States, were waking up to the growing public appetite for wireless communications and to the shortage of technology to feed it. The secret was already out in Europe, where no fewer than three new cordless and cellular systems were progressing from drawing board to laboratory to factory to consumers. In July 1989, the FCC held a well-attended tutorial that turned into a debate over whether second generation British or Swedish technology held the key to mass-market personal communications. Many in the audience wondered whether United States technology was out of the picture. Technology uncertainties are more acute in wireless communications than in any other information service. For example multi-gigabit optical fiber communications have followed an orderly progression from basic science leading to technology, which in turn stimulated standards, and then commercial products. Eventually applications will be found and industry and society at large will reap the benefits. By contrast, the applications of wireless communications are apparent to an eager public. A large market exists but is held in check by a shortage of capacity. The demand has led the cellular industry to formulate standards for advanced systems before the technology is in place to implement them. Everyone holds their breath waiting to observe performance of the first products. Gaps in basic science add to the uncertainty and forestall the resolution of technological debates.

330 pages, Paperback

First published October 12, 2012

About the author

David Goodman is an award-winning investigative journalist, author of seven books (including three NY Times bestsellers), and a contributing writer for Mother Jones. His most recent book, co-authored with his sister Amy Goodman (host of Democracy Now!), is Standing Up to the Madness: Ordinary Heroes in Extraordinary Times (Hyperion, paperback 2009), which profiles the movers and movements that have defended democracy in the U.S. and helped bring about the current historic electoral changes. David and Amy Goodman's first book, The Exception to the Rulers, was named by Publishers Weekly as one of the Top 50 Nonfiction Books of 2004, and Booksense chose it as the top nonfiction book of the 2004 election season.

David Goodman's articles have appeared in the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Outside, The Nation, and many other publications. He has been featured on numerous radio and television news shows, including Democracy Now!, Fresh Air, CNN, and the PBS Lehrer News Hour. His reporting is included in the American Empire Project book, In the Name of Democracy (Metropolitan, 2005) and No Easy Victories: African Liberation and American Activists over a Half Century, 1950-2000 (Africa World Press, 2007).

David lives with his wife, Sue Minter, and their two children in Vermont."