IEEE JOURNAL ON SELECTED AREAS IN COMMUNICATIONS, VOL. 14, NO.
4, MAY 1996
Guest Editorial
Wireless Local Communications
I N THE last few years, there have been significant advances
in personal computing and personal communications, in-
cluding the introduction of powerful notebook computers
and portable (and even handheld) datdvoice terminals. To
support the higher speeds and spectral efficiency desired for
future applications in these areas, small-cell wireless tech-
nologies, systems, and networks are needed. In addition,
recent standards activities, such as the IEEE 802.11 and
HIPERLAN wireless local area network (LAN) standards,
personal communication systems (PCS’s), and personal handy-
phone systems (PHS’s), have encouraged the development
of new wireless communications systems for the local en-
vironment. The April/May issues of the IEEE JOURNALON
SELECTED AREASIN COMMUNICATIONS focus on technologies
for wireless local communications, including wireless LAN’s,
micro/pico-cellular PCS’s, wireless local loops, and wireless
access to wired systems. In the April issue, we presented
papers on channel measurement and modeling, transmission
technologies, and spread spectrum techniques. Papers on ac-
cess techniques, system issues, resource management, and
networking technologies are included in this issue.
Chunnel Access: In addition to the issue of reliable phys-
ical transmission, a key task in wireless communications is
how to effectively coordinate transmissions to maximize the
system throughput. Here, we present three papers related to
channel access. The first paper, “A Multiple Access Scheme
for Wireless Access to a Broadband ATM LAN Based on
Polling and Sectored Antennas,” by A. S. Mahmoud, D.
D. Falconer, and S. A. Mahmoud, proposes and evaluates
the performance of an adaptive polling scheme for multiple
access in a broadband wireless LAN. The architecture is
microcellular and the polling scheme is designed to accom-
modate ATM traffic with a large and variable range of bit
rates. To overcome some of the limitations of current cellular
systems, F. Borgonovo, M. Zorzi, L. Fratta, V. Trecordi, and
G. Bianchi describe a new access scheme for small-cell high
bandwidth systems in “Capture-Division Packet Access for
Wireless Personal Communications.” In this paper, the authors
take advantage of the capture effect in a radio environment to
achieve parallel transmissions and higher efficiency. PRMA
is one of the pioneering access mechanisms for wireless
packet communication. In “A New Protocol for the Integration
of Voice and Data over PRMA,” by P. Narasimhan and
R. D. Yates, the total available bandwidth is dynamically
partitioned for voice information, voice contention, and data
transmission. A nonlinear programming technique is used to
optimize bandwidth allocation to yield an effective protocol
for integrated traffic.
System Issues: Efficient system design is crucial for achiev-
ing near optimal system performance. However, small-cell
593
system issues have not been extensively investigated in the
literature. Five papers are presented here covering this topic.
“Performance of Simulcast Wireless Techniques for Personal
Communication Systems,” by S. Ariyavisitakul, T. E. Darcie,
L. J. Greenstein, M. P. Phillips, and N. K. Shankaranarayanan,
provides a detailed study of several potential PCS air in-
terfaces. CO-channel interference and noise performance as
well as the resource sharing benefit of simulcast PCS are
considered. Recently, CDMA for indoor environments has
been attracting much attention. In “A CDMA Distributed
Antenna System for In-Building Personal Communication
Services,” H. H. Xia, A. B. Herrera, S. Kim, and F. S. Rico
evaluate the performance of a CDMA PCS distributed antenna
system in the 1.8 GHz band. Measurement and modeling
results are presented on coverage, voice quality, reduction
of transmit power and path diversity. “Spectral Efficiency
and Optimal Base Placement for Indoor Wireless Networks,”
by D. Stamatelos and A. Ephremides, addresses the prob-
lem of optimizing the spectral efficiency of cellular indoor
wireless networks by adjusting the location and power of
the base stations. In a similar vein, in “Optimal Location of
Transmitters for Micro-Cellular Radio Communication System
Design,” H. D. Sherali, C. M. Pendyala, and T. S. Rappaport
investigate three nonlinear optimization algorithms for deter-
mining the optimal location of a single transmitter or that of
multiple transmitters. Diversity is well known as an effective
countermeasure technique for severe fading. In “Selection
Diversity Combining with Multiple Antennas for MM-Wave
Indoor Wireless Channels,” by Y. Roy, J.-Y. Chouinard, and
S. A. Mahmoud, selection diversity combining suitable for
millimeter-wave indoor wireless channel with many small
antennas is studied. To reduce the complexity, schemes to
decrease the number of combined signals without seriously
sacrificing the performance are discussed.
Resource Management: In addition to physical transmis-
sion and access efficiency, radio resource management in
multicell wireless networks can strongly affect the overall
spectral efficiency and quality-of-service. For multiple small-
cell networks, resource management, such as power control,
to ensure successful frequency reuse, and dynamic channel
allocation, to fully utilize the radio spectrum, is especially
important. In “A Wireless Multimedia CDMA System Based
on Transmission Power Control,” J. Wu and R. Kohno propose
a method for coping with the varying requirements imposed
by disparate types of communications traffic. Voice, images,
and data each imposes a different set of requirements for
data rate, latency, and fidelity. This paper shows how these
requirements can be met with a CDMA system employing
sophisticated power control and interference cancellation tech-
niques. “A Fully Distributed Power Control Algorithm for
594 l E t E JOURNAL O\ StLbCTkD AREAS IN COMMUNICATIONS, VOL 14, NO 4, MAY 1996

Cellular Mobile Systems,” by T. H. Lee and J. C. Lin, proposes
a fully distributed power control algorithm for cellular radio
systems by using an approximation which does not need a
normalization procedure and can guarantee CIR balancing. In
“Performance Evaluation of Distributed Measurement-Based
Dynamic Channel Assignment in Local Wireless Communi-
cations,” M. M.-L. Cheng and J. C.-I. Chuang evaluate and
compare several distributed measurement-based algorithms for
dynamic channel assignment and a centralized prediction-
based algorithm. A simple aggressive algorithm without using
an interference threshold is shown to perform best.
Networking Technologies: The last, but definitely not the
least, of our topics deals with networking among nodes in
small-cell wireless systems. “Distributed Call Admission Con-
trol in MobileiWireless Networks,” by M. Naghshineh and M.
Schwartz, presents a distributed call admission control algo-
rithm for future wireless/mobile networks with a quality-of-
service provision which limits the handoff dropping probabil-
ity. Recently, the FCC allocated spectrum for unlicensed per-
sonal communication services, part of which will be used for
isochronous or circuit-switched applications. This introduces
a new application area for low-power small-cell systems. Two
papers address this topic. “Performance of Personal Access
Communications System-Unlicensed B,” by L. F. Chang, A.
R. Noerpel, and A. Ranade, suggests a port channel assignment
process for the PACS-UB and discusses the corresponding
uplink and downlink performance in two-dimensional and
three-dimensional layouts. “Polling Deregistration for Unli-
censed PCS,” by A. R. Noerpel, L. F. Chang, and Y. B.
Lin, describes a polling deregistration protocol that would
support interoperability between licensed PCS and version-B
unlicensed PCS. The optimal polling frequency is also derived.
N.Guo, S. D. Morgera, and P. Mermelstein, in “Common
Packet Data Channel (CPDC) for Integrated Wireless DS-
CDMA Networks,” propose and analyze an architecture in
DS-CDMA networks for a common packet data channel
to support packet-based services concurrently with stream-
based services. Finally, in “Throughput Analysis of DS/SSMA
Unslotted ALOHA System with Fixed Packet Length,” T.
Sato, H. Okada, T. Yamazato, M. Katayama, and A. Ogawa,
analyze the throughput performance of a pure-ALOHA multi-
ple access protocol using DS-SSMA with fixed packet length.
The optimal threshold of a channel load sensing protocol is
also determined.
We received a very large number of submissions (140) and
many good quality papers could not be accepted. We would
like to thank the reviewers for their more than 300 high quality
reviews and Prof. L. B . Milstein, the JSAC Representative for
this issue. Last, but certainly not least, we would like to thank
the IEEE staff for their help.
KWANG-CHENG CHEN,Guest Editor
LEONARD J. CIMINS,
Jr., Guest Editor
BRIAND. WOERNER, Guest Editor
SUSUMU YOSHSDA, Guest Editor
LAWRENCE
B. MILSTEIN,
J-SAC Board Representative

Kwang-Cheng Chen received the B.S. degree from National Taiwan University, Taipei,
Taiwan, in 1983, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the University
of Maryland. College Park. in 1987 and 1989. respectively.
From 1983 to 1985, he taught telecommunications courses for military service. From 1987
to 1991, he participated in satellite mobile communications systemhetwork design with SSE
and COMSAT and worked on high speed wireless data networking with the IBM Thomas J.
Watson Research Center. Since 1991, he has been an Associate Professor at the Department of
Electrical Engineering, National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan. His research interests include
communication theory and its applications to wireless communications and networks. He serves
as a Guest Editor for the ACMBlatzer Journal on Wireless Networks, and is a Technical
Editor for the International Journal of Wireless Information Networks and IEEE Personal
Communications Magazine. He has been a voting member of the IEEE 802.11 (Wireless LAN’s)
and 802.14 (Broadband Communication over CATV Networks) standard working groups.
Dr. Chen has been involved in the technical organization of various IEEE Conferences and is the Technical Program
Committee Chair of the 1996 International Symposium on Personal Indoor Mobile Radio Communications. He was elected as
an Outstanding Young Engineer by the Institute of Chinese Engineers in 1994.
IEEE JOURNAL ON SELECTED AREAS IN COMMUNICATIONS, VOL. 14, NO. 4, MAY 1996 595

Leonard J. Cimini, Jr. (S’77-M’82-SM’89) was born in Philadelphia, PA, on April 19, 1956.
He received the B.S. (Summa Cum Laude), M.S.E., and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering
from the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, in 1978, 1979, and 1982, respectively.
During his graduate work, he was supported by a National Science Foundation Fellowship.
Since 1982, he has been with AT&T Bell Laboratories, Holmdel, NJ, where his current research
interests are in wireless communications systems. He is also an Adjunct Professor at the
University of Pennsylvania. He currently serves as Area Editor for Wireless Communications
for the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON COMMUNCATIONS.
Dr. Cimini is a member of Tau Beta Pi and Eta Kappa Nu.

Brian D. Woerner (S’87-M’92) was born on October 11, 1964. He received the B.S. degree
in computer science and electrical engineering from Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, in
1986, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in 1987
and 1991, respectively, where he is a Unisys Fellow. He also received the Master’s degree
in public policy from the University of Michigan, with an emphasis on telecommunications
policy.
Since 1991, he has been an Assistant Professor with the Bradley Department of Electrical
Engineering at Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA. In June 1994, he became Director of the
Mobile and Portable Radio Research Group. His research interests lie in the field of wireless
communications, particularly in the analysis of modulation, error correction, and code division
multiple access techniques.

Susumu Yoshida (M’78) received the B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering
from Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan, in 1971, 1973, and 1978, respectively.
Since 1973, he has been with the Faculty of Engineering, Kyoto University, where he became
an Associate Professor, in 1979, and a Full Professor, in 1992. From 1971 to 1976, he was
engaged in the pioneering research of line coding with spectral nulls. Since 1977, he has
been mainly engaged in the research of mobile radio communications, i.e., urban multipath
propagation modeling, anti-multipath modulation schemes, etc. During 1991-1992, he was
a Visiting Scholar at WINLAB, Rutgers University, and Carleton University, Canada. His
current research interests include adaptive receivers, such as an interference canceling equalizer,
dynamic channel allocation for multimedia wireless networks, image transmission over a fading
channel etc. He is an Associate Editor of the IEEE Communications Society and Book Liaison
to the IEEE Press.
Dr. Yoshida was awarded the Young Researcher’s Award and the Achievement Award
from the IEICE, in 1978 and 1993, respectively, and the Telecomm System Technology Award from the Telecommunication
Promotion Foundation of Japan, in 1988.