Personal area technologies for internetworked services

This article reviews wireless enabling technologies to support interworking of heterogeneous networks, and covers two relevant topics; personal area networks and multistandard terminals. The variability of the PAN channel is demonstrated, and the implications for air interface design are discussed. To ensure the effective operation in the shared spectrum, radio resource management and medium access control strategies for PANs are also discussed. It is recognized that the terminal cost has significant implications for user acceptance; therefore, by combining the functionality from different standards (cellular, wireless LAN, broadcast), the cost can be reduced. Technologies and architectures relevant for multistandard terminals are reviewed, including synchronization and linear RF processing. Finally, the potential for further simplifications within the framework of multicarrier CDMA is considered.