Introduction

This chapter seeks to establish a fundamental baseline of understanding around wireless communications. One of the major concerns different users of the wireless spectrum have revolves around the frequencies of electromagnetic waves they are allowed to utilize. Wireless communication standards are an agreement between users of a shared wireless link to communicate in a predictable way that allows all users to both share the spectrum and understand one another. Wireless coexistence strategies are a necessity to mitigate congestion in spectrum access. The five primary strategies for deconfliction are separation, mitigation, monitoring, sensing, and collaboration. A wireless system may have exclusive access to a specific bandwidth, and that exclusivity would be an example of a separation strategy, but within that system there may be licensed concurrent emitters employing strategies to coordinate and avoid interference. The chapter also presents an overview on the key concepts discussed in this book.