Trends in Wireless Indoor Networks

Abstract

Abstract This chapter provides an overview of the trends in wireless indoor networks. Since the late 1970's when the concept of wireless LAN was first introduced, this area has gone through significant ups and downs. After a very exciting development period in the late 1980's, market revenues still remained far below predictions in the mid 1990's. However, during the late 1990's with the introduction of wireless personal area networking, Bluetooth technology, and home networking, a new surge of excitement has emerged in the wireless indoor communication industry, resulting in a number of new start up projects. Furthermore in the past few years, the emergence of wireless indoor positioning systems to augment wireless indoor telecommunication services, has attracted tremendous attention to wireless indoor networks.