Next Generation Wireless Applications: Creating Mobile Applications in a Web 2.0 and Mobile 2.0 World, 2nd Edition

12.2 THE RADIO PART

Some books tend to place a lot of emphasis and time on discussing the radio part of a cellular network. This is perhaps because the RF is what naturally feels like the essence of a mobile application or a mobile network. However, from an applications perspective, understanding the actual RF part is perhaps the lowest priority in understanding the entire network of networks that we have been traversing throughout this book. As we pointed out in Chapter 4, the overriding challenge for the RF component is for it to be as transparent as can be, meaning that it is actually as ‘wire-like’ as possible in terms of its information handling attributes. To an extent, one could treat the RF component as such and ignore its characteristics and vagaries. As we shall see, that would probably be a folly approach to mobile service design. Perhaps the most crucial parts of the RF network to understand are its boundaries with the IP network. This often seems to be a source of confusion; how do we get from the IP world to the RF one?

We do not wish to belittle the RF network. As we shall come to appreciate, the processes and mathematics that underpins RF transmission technology are by no means trivial. The information theorists and communications experts have invented something quite incredible. However, given a functioning RF network, the greater challenges in application system design are seldom to do with the RF. They are probably more likely to do with the configuration of ...