ABSTRACT
This chapter offers readers with a background in video a road to under standing the basic designs of wireless systems and networks. We start with an overview of wireless system characteristics, including channel impairments and various multiple-access schemes. The intent is to provide readers with the basic
concept of the cause of wireless channel impairments and to present related sta tistics to facilitate more research activities in the field of low bit rate video over wireless channels. The representative third-generation air interface is then briefly discussed, together with its individual attributes. Where possible, there is com parison with its second-generation counterpart. Wireless/mobile ATM, the Inter net mobility management protocol (Mobile IP), the packet-based general packet radio services (GPRS), and the infrastructure approach of the CDMA2000 and Wideband CDMA are described. Finally, the challenges of optimized video codec for wireless environments are presented.
