HIGH DATA RATE RADIO LANS

There is an exploding demand for higher capacity air interfaces that enable wireless connectivity to fixed wired infrastructures. This demand is still driven by voice communication but the interest in data communication is growing with the popularity of email. [Jltimately multimedia traffic will dominate. This paper describes wireless standards which were designed for wireless LAN applications but are of special interest because the problems tackled in their design will be revisited in the design of future multimedia mobile radio standards. In addition to this, if UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System) evolves into a networking standard, these air interfaces may be used for high transmission rate wireless links to the UMTS infrastructure. These air interfaces may even become the wireless versions of ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode). The spectrum, requirements and design of the PHY (PHYsical) and MAC (Medium Access Control) layers of these air interfaces are discussed in this paper. Potential for future systems is also explored.