BKPCSDCT.RVW  970817

"PCS & Digital Cellular Technologies", Rifaat A. Dayem, 1997,
0-13-616574-5
%A   Rifaat A. Dayem
%C   One Lake St., Upper Saddle River, NJ   07458
%D   1997
%G   0-13-616574-5
%I   Prentice Hall
%O   800-576-3800 201-236-7139 fax: 201-236-7131
%O   betsy_carey@prenhall.com
%P   231
%T   "PCS & Digital Cellular Technologies: Assessing Your options"

Recently, I was asked to provide more coverage of books dealing with
mobile communications, and the emerging technologies therein.  I was
rather loathe to get deeply into the field, and responded that most
such works tended to be dense with equations and studded with graphs
of antenna signal strength.  Such tomes may be fine for
telecommunications engineers, who probably know all of them already,
but are less than helpful to the average technical user or manager who
needs to gain a general understanding of what is going on and what the
issues are.

Dayem's book is certainly far from perfect, in that regard, but it is
the best general explanation I have seen to date.  Written by a
knowledgeable and involved participant in the field, it is aimed at
the non-specialist audience.  The various technologies are explained,
and the technical issues and problems are described, usually without
recourse to technical arcana.  The approaches being taken in different
countries and regions are clarified, and a list of manufacturers is
given in an appendix.  The material is generally readable, practical,
and understandable.

The technical level, while usually intended for the average reader, is
inconsistent.  The discussion of propagation and channel fading does
get into extensive formulae, although this is mercifully brief.  On
the other hand, the explanation of CDMA (Code Division Multiple
Access) is a complete failure.  Both the glossary and index are very
short and have serious shortcomings, especially in view of Dayem's
tendency to use acronyms long before they are defined.  Mistakes such
as "Shanon's Theorem" make even the technically literate wonder if
they are missing something.

Overall, this is a very useful guide to the features, strengths, and
weaknesses of the many new and emerging technologies that
telecommunications managers are having to face.  Dayem does provide a
helpful reference to the spate of new offerings coming to market, and
to the alphabet soup accompanying them.

copyright Robert M. Slade, 1997   BKPCSDCT.RVW  970817