Guest Column

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This article is part of a series of quarterly guest columns by Rick Cory, Applications Engineering Manager, Skyworks Solutions, Inc.

There does not appear to be a lot happening in the western Atlantic Ocean in midsummer. Even from a filled-to-capacity cruise ship, one could easily be overcome by a sense of isolation while scanning to the horizon. It is of little solace to know that the sea teems with life, because very little is readily visible looking outward from the deck of a ship. But all that is needed to shock oneself back to a sense of connection to life and home is the momentary surprise of hearing one's cellular phone ring, several hundred miles from the nearest land-based cellular base station.

The fabric of electronic communications infrastructure is evolving commensurate with that of the mobile equipment counterparts, to the extent that we all have come to expect the ability to use our mobiles whenever we want to, wherever we are. Communications infrastructure has progressed from switched-circuit, land-line telephone systems anchored by those nondescript but ubiquitous red brick buildings, known as central offices, in so many towns and cities, to cellular telephone base station macro cell transceivers, to microcell base stations, to picocells to femtocells to mobile base stations on a cruise ship, linked via satellite communications to the fixed position, terrestrial infrastructure system. (By the way, I have not dared to look at my roaming charges yet.)