Limits of Radio Communication — Collaborative Transmission Over Cellular Radio Channels

Communication by the radiation of electromagnetic waves — radiocommunication — is potentially the simplest and most flexible means of transmitting information over distances of more than a few metres. A transmitter, a receiver, and two antennas is all that is needed. Its flexibility lies in that it is wireless — pun intended! — especially if either the transmitter, or the receiver (or both) are mobile, when radio is the only feasible means of communication. But this very convenience and flexibility also makes radio the interesting and challenging field of endeavour that it is in practice. The difficulty is the all-pervasive transmission medium. Radio waves can propagate — as air-waves, space-waves, and so on — to many places where they are unwanted, whereas “wire” communication is guided (normally) only to where it is required. More subtly, the purpose of communication is to put people in contact, by means of suitable connecting arrangements and protocols. This element of organisation is built in to wire communications, if only because of the need to provide a transmission medium between all those who may wish to communicate; often it has been overlooked or neglected in the case of radiocommunication.