From: std-mod@cssmp.corp.mot.com (Moderator - comp.std.wireless) Newsgroups: comp.std.wireless Followup-To: comp.std.wireless Subject: FAQ for "comp.std.wireless" Date: 31 Jul 1995 17:55:07 GMT Organization: unknown Message-ID: <3vj5dr$785@ftpbox.mot.com> Here is a an updated copy of the FAQ for the newsgroup. It contains many pointers to sources of information on the wireless industry and related technologies. Best regards, W. Stuart Jones -- This is the Moderator account for the USENET newsgroup 'comp.std.wireless'. For questions or comments please send email to : Wesley Stuart Jones : jonesw@mot.com John McKown : mckown@wes.mot.com ====================================================================== Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) for the newsgroup 'comp.std.wireless' ====================================================================== Additions and corrections to this FAQ are requested. Version: 4.0 Last-modified: July 31, 1995 Compiled by Wesley Stuart Jones Address comments to std-mod@wes.mot.com (Wesley Stuart Jones) Copyright (C) 1995 by Wesley Stuart Jones. All rights reserved. Redistribution of this document/file in both electronic and printed form, is permitted only if this document/file is distributed in its entirety, including this copyright notice. If you redistribute this file, please notify W. Stuart Jones so that distribution records can be kept. Disclaimer: Any opinions implied or stated in the following document are those solely of Wesley Stuart Jones and not his employer Motorola Inc. Table of Contents -------------------------------------------------------------------------- I. GENERAL INFORMATION 1. WHAT IS THE PURPOSE FOR THE NEWSGROUP? 2. WHO IS THE MODERATOR? 3. WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF THIS FAQ? 4. WHAT ARE THE RULES FOR POSTING? 5. HOW DO I POST TO THE NEWSGROUP? 6. WHERE IS THE ARCHIVE FOR THE NEWSGROUP? 7. WHAT DOES THIS STAND FOR? (LIST OF COMMON ABBREVIATIONS) II. COMMITTEE INFORMATION 1. WHAT ARE THE CURRENT COMMITTEES DISCUSSING WIRELESS DATA STANDARDS AND HOW CAN I CONTACT THEM? III. CDPD INFORMATION 1. WHAT IS CDPD? 2. HOW DOES CDPD WORK? 3. WHAT IS THE DATA RATE FOR CDPD? IV. MORE INFORMATION 1. WHO ARE THE CURRENT SUPPLIERS OF WIRELESS DATA PRODUCTS AND HOW DO I CONTACT THEM? 2. WHAT CAN BE FOUND ON THE WEB (WWW)? 3. HOW CAN I GET ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ABOUT WIRELESS PRODUCTS/SERVICES/COMPANIES? 4. WHAT ARE GOOD MAGAZINE REFERENCES FOR WIRELESS DATA INFORMATION? V. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS -------------------------------------------------------------------------- ========================== I. GENERAL INFORMATION ========================== 1.1 WHAT IS THE PURPOSE FOR THE NEWSGROUP? The primary goal of this newsgroup is to promote consistency and mutual awareness between existing committees (e.g., IEEE 802.11 and ETSI RES-10) and any future committees. The newsgroup expedites their deliberations by providing a convenient forum for technical discussion between their scheduled meetings. Additionally, the open nature of the newsgroup helps the standardization process by allowing people not normally connected with the standards groups to provide their input. The newsgroup has no official standing with any standards group or other organization. A secondary goal is to explore applications for wireless network technology. The emerging standards must, after all, correctly anticipate these applications. 1.2 WHO IS THE MODERATOR? The moderator for the newsgroup is Wesley Stuart Jones. Mr. Jones is an employee of Motorola, Inc. in the Wireless Data Group. The moderator can be reached by sending electronic mail (email) to 'std-mod@wes.mot.com'. Motorola desires that the newsgroup be operated in a neutral, non-commercial manner which is fair to all. 1.3 WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF THIS FAQ? This document, the FAQ for the newsgroup, was composed to provide general information about the newsgroup. It would be impossible to attempt to answer all common questions regarding the field of wireless data communication. Hopefully, the information contained in this document will direct the reader to adequate sources of information answering questions related to the field. Should some questions repeatedly appear in the newsgroup in the future they will be added to this document. 1.4 WHAT ARE THE RULES FOR POSTINGS? Generally, anything related to any of the standards committees or wireless technologies is welcome. The moderator may reject postings he deems unprofessional or tasteless. 1.5 HOW DO I POST TO THE NEWSGROUP? Posting to the newsgroup is the same as any other USENET newsgroup. All postings are forwarded to the moderator for approval. If the message does not show up in a day or so and no rejection notice is received, please try again or email a copy of the post to 'std-mod@wes.mot.com'. Those who do not have access to posting facilities please email messages to 'std-mod@wes.mot.com'. 1.6 WHERE IS THE ARCHIVE FOR THE NEWSGROUP? To the moderator's knowledge there exists no archive for the newsgroup. Anyone who has the ability and is willing to archive the newsgroup please email the moderator. 1.7 WHAT DOES THIS STAND FOR? (A LIST OF COMMON ABBREVIATIONS) Abbreviations: ARQ Automatic Repeat Request bbs bulletin board system bps bits per second CCITT International Telegraph and Telephone Consultative Committee CDPD Cellular Digital Packet Data CSMA Carrier Sense Multiple Access comm communication(s) DSSS Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum EU European Union FHSS Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum ISDN Integrated Services Digital Network IR InfraRed LOS Line Of Sight MAC Medium Access Control MDBS Mobile Data Base Station mgmt management mgr manager NIC Network Interface Card NTIA National Telecommunications & Information Administration PDA Personal Digital Assistant PHY Physical layer QoS Quality of Service rcv receive RF radio frequency SS Spread Spectrum s/w software WL wireless =========================== II. Committee Information =========================== 2.1 WHAT ARE THE CURRENT COMMITTEES DISCUSSING WIRELESS DATA STANDARDS AND HOW CAN I CONTACT THEM? IEEE P802.11 Working to develop a MAC and PHY specification for wireless connectivity for fixed, portable, and moving stations within a local area with raw bit rates exceeding 1 Mbit/s. Chairman: Vic Hayes (vic.hayes@utrecht.ncr.com) See section 3.2 under 802.11 Documents to access documents via Internet ftp. ETSI RES-10 The EU has allocated hundreds of MHz in the 5 to 17 GHz bands for Hiperlan, the wireless data system standard being written by ETSI RES-10. Time-bounded service will be an integral (non-optional) part of the standard. User data rates should be 20 Mbps or higher. Participation in RES-10 is limited to ETSI-members --- the main requirement is an European address. Chairman: Bernard Bourin (bourin@dassault-at.fr) TIA Committee on Wireless User Premises Equipment (WUPE) (TR41.6) Subcommittee of TIA/EIA for User Premises Equipment. Charter includes all wireless premises equipment. Active projects on video, audio, and data wireless. Chairman: Peter Leigh (bligh@software.mitel.com) =========================== III. CDPD Information =========================== 3.1 WHAT IS CDPD? CDPD stands for Cellular Digital Packet Data. CDPD is a network that transmits digital packet data over your cellular telephone. 3.2 HOW DOES CDPD WORK? CDPD uses the idle time between cellular voice calls to transmit data. A Mobile Data Base Station (MDBS) resides at each cell site. The MDBS uses a scanning receiver to scan all the AMPS channels. In doing so, the MDBS detects the presence of any voice traffic based on the signal strength. Providing that there are two channels idle (for transmitting and receiving), the MDBS will establish an air link. "Channel hopping" occurs when an analog voice signal is preparing to use the link that MDBS has. The MDBS then has 40 msec to disconnect the link and establish a link on a different idle channel. It is due to this "channel hopping" that CDPD becomes transparent to the AMPS network. 3.3 WHAT IS THE DATA RATE OF CDPD? The raw data rate for CDPD is 19.2 kbps. However, due to overhead for reliability reasons, the actual throughput is about 9.6 kpbs. =========================== IV. More Information =========================== 4.1 WHO ARE THE CURRENT SUPPLIERS OF WIRELESS DATA PRODUCTS AND HOW DO I CONTACT THEM? The best source for wireless suppliers is Anthony Stieber (anthony@alpha1.csd.uwm.edu). Mr. Stieber keeps lists of wireless suppliers at the site 'csd4.csd.uwm.edu' in the /pub/Portables/Wireless directory for "anonymous" ftp. The lists divided into CDPD, cellular, IR, LAN, paging, satellite, WAN, and miscellaneous categories. 4.2 WHAT CAN BE FOUND ON THE WEB (WWW)? The following sites can be located on the World Wide Web. Advanced Radio Research Centre (ARRC) - Motorola and Canadian Federal Government initiative to provide funding and support to Canadian software developers and universities for research in wireless data technology. http://www.arrc.ca/ Air Communications - Air Communications, Inc. home page for mobile connectivity solutions. http://datahut.airtouch.net/newtech/aircomm.html Advanced Network Solutions - wireless modems/adapters/PCMCIA http://www.halcyon.com/routers/welcome.htm Computer Communications Entry Page - Pointers to URLs (other WWW sites) for communications companies and related topics. http://www-atp.llnl.gov/atp/telecom.html Datalink International - Information about Mobitex http://www.helix.net/datalink/ Ex Machnia, Inc. - developers of wireless messaging software for many common OS platforms. http://exmachina.com/ FCC's home page http://www.fcc.gov/ GHZ Equipment Company - wireless cable FAQ and information on wide band wireless systems http://access.net99.net/~ghzequip/index.html It's a Wireless World - Site run by Tim Cocklin dedicated the wireless industry. Pointers to many other URLs and companies. http://www.iadfw.net/tcocklin/index.htm McCaw Wireless Data - McCaw's WWW site http://www.cellular.com/ or http://www.airdata.com/ Metricom, Inc. - Metricom's WWW site http://www.metricom.com/ Motorola Inc. - Motorola's WWW site http://www.mot.com/ QUALCOMM - Qualcomm's WWW site http://lorien.qualcomm.com/QualHome.html T1 - American National Standards Institute WWW site http://www.t1.org Tetherless Access Ltd. (TAL) - Wireless TCP/IP and Internet provider http://www.tetherless.com/ Telecom Information Resources on the Internet - links to other resources dealing with telecommunications http://www.ipps.lsa.umich.edu/telecom-info.html Wynd Communications Wireless Service - wireless service provider for paging, fax, and email via RAM Mobile Data. http://www.wynd.net/wynd WirelessConnect - company providing wireless IP products http://www.wci.com/web The Wireless Opportunities Coalition - General wireless data information. http://wireless.policy.net/wireless/wireless.html Xircom - Xircom's WWW site http://www.organic.com:80/Commercial/Xircom 4.3 HOW CAN I GET ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ABOUT WIRELESS PRODUCTS/ SERVICES/COMPANIES? The following sites on the Internet have documents which can be "ftp-ed". If the login is not stated use "anonymous" to get access to the site. Format: - login: *only if login is not anonymous 802.11 Documents- atg.apple.com (17.255.4.30) Kerry Lynn (kerlyn@apple.com) /pub/802.11 README file and subdirectories RFMACSIM, drop, ibmpc, macintosh. Under 'ibmpc' are subdirectories 1991_docs, 1992_docs, 1993_docs, 1994_docs, etc, issues, std. 802.11 Documents- ftp.cs.utwente.nl (130.89.10.247) (mirror of Apple 802.11) Ronald Brockman (roana@cs.utwente.nl) /pub/802.11 README file and subdirectories RFMACSIM, drop, ibmpc, macintosh. Under 'ibmpc' are subdirectories 1991_docs, 1992_docs, 1993_docs, 1994_docs, etc, issues, std. FCC- ftp.fcc.gov (192.104.54.2) /pub FCC UPCS rules NTIA- ntiabbs.ntia.doc.gov (??) N/A - bbs format Government information concerning frequency use and allocation University of Aachen- ftp.dfv.rwth-aachen.de (137.226.4.111) /pub/doc/cellular login: ftp Miscellaneous cellular and GSM Documentation UWM Info-Computing Services Division- csd4.csd.uwm.edu (129.89.7.4) Anthony Stieber (anthony@alpha1.csd.uwm.edu) /pub/Portables/Wireless Lists of contacts, specifications, and descriptions of wireless networking systems. TCP/IP mobility- parcftp.xerox.com () /pub/mobile-ip archives from mobile-IP mailing list ??? cs.dal.ca () /comp.archives/comp.dcom.telecom misc. archives and Qualcomm specs ??? ftp.comp.lancs.ac.uk (148.88.16.9) /pub/mpg mobile computing bibliography The following sources have documents available; some of the sources are commercial. ------------------------------------------------------------------- CDPD Forum Headquarters 401 North Michigan Avenue Chicago, IL 60611 800-385-CDPD email: info@forum.cdpd.net CDPD Industry Input Coordinator Pittaglio Rabin Todd & McGrath 650 Town Center Dr., Suite 820 Costa Mesa, CA 92626 714-545-9400 X235 CDPD specification McCaw Cellular Clarissa Jurgenson Kirkland, WA 800-42-MCCAW 206-827-4500 Cellular Digital Packet Data system specification CDPD Industry Input Coordinator 650 Town Center Drive, Suite 820 Costa Mesa, CA 92626 CompuServe's Telecom Forum - Library reference and online discussion of telecom related topics including cellular technology, wireless data, etc. Operated by: Glenbrook Systems, Inc. PO Box 7130 Menlo Park, CA 94026-7130 SysOp: Scott Loftesness (76703.407@compuserve.com) National Telecommunications & Information Administration (NTIA) BBS 202-482-1199 (bbs number) SysOp: Roger Clark 202-482-1407 (voice) email: rclark@ntia.doc.gov Overnet BBS - News, information, FCC/NTIA reports, discussion areas, etc. P.O. Box 8551 Calabasas, CA 91372-8551 SysOp: Scott Goldman (Goldman@overnet.com) For information send request to info@overnet.com Portable Computer and Communications Association (PCCA) P.O. Box 924 Brookdale, CA 95007 408-338-0924 If you know of other good sources of information please email them to the moderator. 4.4 WHAT ARE SOME GOOD MAGAZINE REFERENCES FOR WIRELESS DATA INFORMATION? Capitol Publications - Mobile Data Report 1101 King Street #444 Alexandria, VA 22314 703-683-4100 301/986-9567 703/739-6490 fax Cellular Business Magazine 333 W. Hampden Avenue #606 Englewood, CO 80110 303-793-0448 Cellular Sales & Marketing Newsletter P.O. Box 1519 Herndon, VA 22070 703-787-4647 Communications Magazine 6300 South Syracuse Way Englewood, CO 80111 303-220-0600 303-773-9716 fax Communications Week PO Box 1094 Skokie, IL 60076 708-647-6834 708-647-6838 fax 303-762-0069 fax Data Communications Magazine McGraw-Hill Inc. 1221 Avenue of the Americas New York, NY 10020 EDN 275 Washington Street Newton, MA 02158 LAN Times 1900 O'Farrell Street, Suite 200 San Mateo, CA 94403 415-513-6800 415-513-6819 fax Macweek Magazine - Mobile Computing 301 Howard Street #1500 San Francisco, CA 94105 415-243-3500 415-243-3651 Mobile Office Magazine 21800 Oxnard Street - Suite 250 Woodland Hills, CA 91367 818-593-6100 818/593-6153 fax Mobile Radio Technology (free) 9800 Metcalf Overland Park, KS 66212-2215 913-967-1741 913/967-1905 fax Personal Electronics News 761 Deep Valley Drive Rolling Hills, CA 90274 310-377-7858 310-377-8218 Phillips Business Information - Wireless Report 1201 Seven Locks Road #300 Potomac, MD 20854 301-340-1520 301-424-4297 Quantum Publishing - Various Books and Publications P.O. Box 310 Mendocino, CA 95460 707-937-4488 800-422-9666 707/937-4489 fax RCR Radio Communications Report 800-678-9595 Radio Resource (free) P.O. Box 15637 North Hollywood, CA 91615-9811 Wireless Design and Development Gordon Publications, Inc. (division of Cahners) P.O. Box 650 Morris Plains, NJ 07950 201-292-5100 201-898-9281 fax Wired Magazine 544 Second Street San Francisco, CA 94107 415-904-6457 415-904-0669 fax Wireless for the Corporate User (free) 201-285-1500 Wireless Messaging Report BRP Publications Inc. 1333 H St. N.W., 2nd Floor-West Washington, DC 20005 202-842-1875 The Wireless Messenger 1030 E. El Camino Real - Box 415 Sunnyvale, CA 94087 408-241-6735 415/854-6108 fax -------------------------------------------------------------------------- =========================== V. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS =========================== John McKown - For Invaluable feedback and contributions for this document and constant advice for the moderator of the newsgroup. Anthony Stieber - For contributing large amounts of information to this document. Lisa Bora - For compiling the CDPD information.