Author: Kari Ranta

Name of the thesis: Use of local area networks, cellular networks and wireless loops as information and communication access networks

Date: 1999-08-10
Number of pages: 88

Faculty: Faculty of Electrical and Communications Engineering

Professorship: S-72 Telecommunication Systems

Supervisor: Professor Seppo J. Halme

Instructor: Lic. Tech. Lauri Halme

This thesis gives an overview about an increasingly important issue in telecommunication, access networks. They have become a strategic issue in today's society especially through the explosion that has taken place in cellular telephony. Also local area networks are getting more and more important through the Internet explosion. A new and hugely growing area is so called Radio Access (wireless loops), which has many fields of application both in office and home environments. Here wireless local area networks have been of great interest and this market has been growing hugely in the U.S.A.

The area is considered through three areas: local area networks, cellular networks and wireless loops. Firstly, a definition for the concept of access networks is given. After this the before mentioned three areas are given a relatively detailed treatment. In the area of local area networks the basic solutions are presented and described, cabling issues are also included here. Cellular networks are presented in fairly general terms. Also some solutions are presented. Particularly the third generation cellular system UMTS and the new WAP and Bluetooth technologies are presented briefly in this area.

As a more in-depth part of the thesis, wireless loops are presented both theoretically and through a practical example, a test system. This was made using Lucent's WaveLAN, a commercial technology. First the test system and its implementalion is described. The results of the tests are presented and discussed. The goal of the measurements was mainly to test the WaveManager software and the characteristics of the WaveLAN system.