See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/3321716

Fundamentals of Wireless Communications [Book Review]

Article  in  IEEE Signal Processing Magazine · June 2006

DOI: 10.1109/MSP.2006.1628891 · Source: IEEE Xplore

CITATIONS READS

0 1,334

1 author:

W. Trappe
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
265 PUBLICATIONS   9,443 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

car detection View project

All content following this page was uploaded by W. Trappe on 23 October 2015.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

[book REVIEW]
Fundamentals of Wireless
Communication by David Tse and
Pramod Viswanath, Cambridge
University Press, 2005, ISBN: 0-521-
84527-0. Reviewed by Wade Trappe,
Rutgers University, New Jersey, USA,
trappe@winlab.rutgers.edu.
O
ver the past decade, there
have been significant
advancements in the
technologies surround-
ing wireless communica-
tions. As a result of the rapid evolution of
the field and the fact that wireless tech-
nologies face unique challenges (which
cannot be adequately addressed under
the generic umbrella of “digital commu-
nications” since this umbrella includes
wireline and optical communications),
there has been a growing need for text-
books that can bridge the gap between
the basics of communications theory and
the methodologies that are at the fore-
front of wireless research. This need has
been identified by several book publish-
ers, resulting in a number of books being
published or scheduled to be published.
An example is Fundamentals of Wireless
Communications by David Tse and
Pramod Viswanath. The authors are two
professors who have made important
contributions to the field of wireless
communications.
As indicated in the preface of their
book, the authors suggest that the
intended audience consists of readers
seeking an advanced undergraduate
course, a graduate course in wireless
communications, or an advanced gradu-
ate course that focuses on multi-input,
multi-output (MIMO) and space-time
coding. In this reviewer’s opinion,
although Fundamentals of Wireless
Communications can be used for each of
IEEE SIGNAL PROCESSING MAGAZINE [134] MAY 2006
these types of classes, its suitability for
these classes depends on the background
of the students as well as the flow of the
communications curriculum. To make
the best use of this book, the students
should have a good background in digital
communications, more specifically,
familiarity with communications theory
and basic modulation. For most universi-
ties, Fundamentals of Wireless
Communications will be more valuable
as a graduate-level textbook and will pro-
vide the most benefit as material for stu-
dents planning to perform research in
physical-layer wireless communications.
The book quickly moves from basic com-
munication theory material to advanced
topics, like MIMO communications and
space-time coding, which will be very
useful to those involved in physical-
layer research. An important feature that
makes this book even more suitable for
classwork at the levels mentioned earlier
is the wealth of exercises at the end of
each chapter. These problems vary in
their level of difficulty, allowing the
instructor to choose routine homework
problems or assign “challenge” problems
that would push advanced graduate stu-
dents. Those interested in using the book
for a course will be happy to know that
the authors have PowerPoint slides and
solutions to some of the exercises avail-
able from the publisher upon request.
In addition to the target audience
already mentioned, Fundamentals of
Wireless Communications will be attrac-
tive to the wider signal processing com-
munity, as the book primarily employs
vector-space notation to formulate com-
munication problems. Rather than com-
plicate discussion by repeatedly
returning to waveform-level representa-
tions, the authors use the vector-space
representation to provide a unified treat-
Wade Trappe
ment for different aspects of physical-
layer communications. The vector-space
notation is particularly powerful as the
book progresses to MIMO communica-
tion, where the matrix-vector notation is
the best “unified” way to represent differ-
ent types MIMO channels.
One topic that this reviewer believes
could have been better addressed in this
book was radio propagation. The authors
provide a basic treatment of wireless prop-
agation in their second chapter. This basic
treatment, however, does not address sev-
eral important topics from wireless propa-
gation, such as large-scale fading and
empirical/statistical propagation models.
Although Tse and Viswanath do explore
Clarke’s flat-fading model as an example,
other important models, such as ray trac-
ing models and pathloss models for
macro-/microcells, are not discussed. In
particular, the difference between indoor
and outdoor propagation modeling is not
thoroughly discussed in Fundamentals of
Wireless Communications, while the
book’s competitors (mentioned next)
devote two chapters to propagation mod-
eling, how channel characteristics can be
measured, and indoor/outdoor propaga-
tion modeling.
Aesthetically and functionally, the
book is very well designed. Upon first
opening the book and flipping through
the pages, one is struck by several nice
typesetting features. For example, every
chapter concludes with a “Plot
Summary” that is set out from the rest of
the text by gray shading. The figures in
the book are quite attractive, with cap-
tions that appear to the side of the figure
rather than beneath the figure. Key
examples are set out from the rest of the
text by lined boxes. Overall, these are
(continued on page 138)
1053-5888/06/$20.00©2006IEEE
 [new PRODUCTS] continued
initially available as a beta for Macintosh,
it will later support both the Windows
and Macintosh platforms.
With just one click, the control pan-
els and tools fade into the background
in lights-out mode, enabling the image
to garner complete attention. The
[book REVIEW] continued from page 134
more than just aesthetic niceties, as
they facilitate quicker searching and
cross-referencing. Cambridge
University Press should be commend-
ed for doing a good job in enhancing
the utility of their book.
Fundamentals of Wireless Com-
munications is likely to face competition
from the entrenched Wireless
Communications: Principles and
Practice by Theodore Rappaport as well
as from other new books. Compared with
Rappaport’s book, the book by Tse and
Viswanath fills a slightly different market
need. Admittedly, Rappaport’s book pro-
vides a complete system perspective as
compared to Fundamentals of Wireless
Communications. For those looking for
a textbook that covers more than just the
physical layer aspect of wireless commu-
IEEE SIGNAL PROCESSING MAGAZINE [138] MAY 2006
View publication stats
Identity Plate feature enables photogra-
phers to apply their own branding to
the application and its output.
Adobe Systems Inc., 345 Park
Avenue, San Jose, CA 95110-2704 USA.
Tel: +1 408 536 6000
Fax: +1 408 537 6000
URL: http://www.adobe.com
ENHANCED NUMERICAL LIBRARY
AIDS C AND C++ PROGRAMMERS
The Numerical Algorithms Group
(NAG) has announced the release of the
NAG C Library. Complete with extensive
new functionality, the NAG C Library
provides programmers with over 1,000
easily embedded numerical routines. In
addition to its considerable new func-
nications, Rappaport’s book is still a bet-
ter candidate. For example, Wireless
Communications: Principles and
Practice includes a discussion devoted to
speech coding (voice was, after all, the
original driver for cellular services), net-
work-level multiple access (such as
CSMA and ALOHA), and the network
architectures associated with wireless
communication. On the other hand, Tse
and Viswanath’s book provides a more
thorough treatment of material that is at
the cutting edge of wireless physical-
layer research, such as MIMO communi-
cation, and its treatment of
physical-layer communication is more
advanced. In fact, Tse and Viswanath’s
book has four chapters devoted to MIMO
communications, covering topics rang-
ing from modeling the MIMO channel, to
tionality, Mark 8 will be available for 64-
b and 32-b applications and feature
compatibility with the latest compilers.
The flexible architecture of the NAG C
Library enables it to be called from
many environments and packages such
as Microsoft .NET, Excel, MATLAB, and
various popular statistical packages.
Mark 8 of the NAG C Library will benefit
anyone needing to add mathematical
and statistical functionality to their
applications.
The Numerical Algorithms Group,
Inc., 1431 Opus Place, Suite 220,
Downers Grove, IL 60515-1362 USA.
Tel: +1 630 971 2337
Fax: +1 630 971 2706
URL: http://www.nag.com [SP]
examining the capacity of MIMO chan-
nels and discussing transceiver architec-
tures, to discussing space-time codes and
multiuser communications.
Overall, Fundamentals of Wireless
Communications is a well-written text
that will find a niche in the growing mar-
ket for wireless communication text-
books. The fact that it covers advanced
physical-layer communications technolo-
gies, like MIMO and space-time coding,
and the fact that it uses matrix-vector
notation will make it a particularly valu-
able resource for researchers and students
in the signal processing community who
are working on topics related to physical-
layer communications. This reviewer
believes that Tse and Viswanath’s book
will have a lasting impact upon those
involved in physical-layer research. [SP]