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Not all carriers operating near the same frequency band offer essentially the same coverage choices. Design trade-offs are made between area coverage and its close cousin, building penetration, versus subscriber capacity. These trade-offs flow from fundamental decisions on channels allocated for data versus control, channel reuse philosophy, base station quantity and location, transmit power levels, FM capture exploitation, bit rates, and message redundancy-to name just a few. These trade-offs are discussed in this chapter. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The airlink subsystem is defined as the span between the user host's connection point and the subscriber unit. It includes the service provider's message switch/area controller, base stations, and the radio modem. There are at least four current philosophical control approaches: (1) decentralized, (2) partially decentralized, (3) partially centralized, and (4) centralized. Each of these approaches is examined in order, from highly decentralized to highly centralized. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The variety of public network choices cited in the preceding chapter leads some potential users to despair at what seems a plethora of alternatives. Actually, specific user requirements can quickly eliminate many network candidates. This permits a more straightforward assessment of realistic alternatives. A few of those salient user characteristics are discussed in this chapter. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This chapter is a simplified look at some nonhardware technologies, protocols, and communication standards that drive both network and device development. The focus is on modulation techniques, error detection/correction, and data compression. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Packet systems are the least uniform and most complex. Examples of the enormous range of products are presented in this chapter, in increasing degrees of complexity, beginning with the client modem and working through servers and gateways to the host application. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]