Understanding Wireless

Understanding Wireless: Technology, Economics, and Policy was a course developed as part of the ND edX effort in spring / summer 2015. The course was developed jointly across four faculty at Notre Dame covering business (Prof. Barry Keating), law (Prof. Tricia Bellia), and engineering (Prof. Nick Laneman, Prof. Aaron Striegel). The course focused on the basic fundamentals of wireless (how does wireless work, how does networking work, what is the regulatory structure for wireless, how do spectrum auctions and economics work in wireless) providing the student with a baseline understanding of the wireless industry. The series is archived via edX from its initial offering (11k enrollees) and is available to take for free.

Prof. Striegel’s portion of the course included discussions on the following topics:

  • Basic networking concepts (node, link, network, route, LAN, WAN, throughput, latency)
  • IP routing, TCP basic operation, understanding your network settings
  • WiFi / unlicensed evolution and operation
  • Cellular / licensed spectrum evolution and operation
  • Localization, Internet of Things