Although the concept of Wireless Communications is pretty simple, the method by which it happens is anything but simple. It’s like the old joke, we all love to eat sausage, but we really would rather not think about how it is made. We all take wireless communications for granted when we use our cell phone, but there are a lot of things happening behind the scenes.
Wireless networks have a lot of advantages over wired networks. To name a few, wireless networks are cheaper and easier to install and maintain. They can be accessed at almost any time from almost any place. And, wireless networks can transmit more data, and transmit it more quickly than a wired network. The biggest disadvantage of a wireless network is that it can be more susceptible to security threats and data exploitation.
For years, wireless networks have been considered the norm in communication systems, but in the last two years, the importance of wireless networks has increased dramatically due to the pandemic. As astutely observed by Ahmadi, Katzis, Shakir, Arvaneh, and Gatherer in their April 2020 paper titled Wireless Communication and the Pandemic: The Story So Far , the role of telecommunications in keeping people connected and working has been phenomenal.
The authors point out that the three most significant contributions of wireless networks have been connectivity for healthcare, connectivity for education, and connectivity for retail and supply chain. The ability to maintain healthcare, education, and retail has been critical to keeping the world up and running with some sense of normalcy during the pandemic.
For healthcare, 5G mobile technology can reliably connect hospitals, ambulances, and homes to make healthcare service more efficient. For education, wireless communications allow students of all ages to remain connected with their teachers, whether they are in the local school, or in a college or university half way around the globe. For Retail, wireless communications allowed people to purchase necessities, and have them delivered to their homes, without undue exposure to the pathogens. For companies, wireless communications allowed businesses to order and receive things that allowed them to stay open for business, and keep their workforce working.
There will always be a need for wireless communication networks, but that need will be particularly great during the remainder of this pandemic, and whenever the next pandemic comes about. It is critical that our wireless communications infrastructure be in place now and in the future to meet the ever-increasing demand for bandwidth.
To learn more about wireless communications, consider taking the upcoming ATI Wireless Communications course. You can read more about this course, and register for it here.
And, as always, a complete list of the ATI courses which may interest you can be found here.