Introduction:

In this four-to-five day course, you will undertake a non-technical yet fairly deep review of wireless technologies from the perspective of law enforcement. The optional fifth day adds a day-long case study of the particular technology of interest to the audience. We will start by describing radio waves, their properties, and their application in various communication systems environments, from radio to TV to cellular systems. By studying real systems that are similar yet very different at the same time, you will acquire a concrete framework for understanding what can be a difficult set of concepts. We will then engage in a broad study of the structure and operation of wireless networks starting with AMPS and evolving to IS54, TDMA, CDMA, GSM, GPRS, EDGE, and now WCDMA, cdam2000, and WiMAX. While at a high level these technologies are quite similar, they differ greatly in their details. Our intention, at all times, is to help you identify the areas and mechanisms that may prove useful to you in your work as well as those that may serve to make your job more difficult.

Audience:

Are you a technical investigations, public safety, law enforcement, or homeland security professional who needs to have a good working knowledge of today’s wireless networks? If so, this course has been designed specifically for you. There are no formal prerequisites, but some exposure to the fixed communications networks and a degree of ease with technology-related issues will be helpful. However, all prerequisite material will be reviewed as needed.

Customize it:

This 4-5-day Wireless for Law Enforcement & Homeland Security course will be customized to your needs and specifications. Enowireless will assist you in identifying those needs and specifications. A word to the wise, there are many vendors of wireless training. They will typically have a broad and general course, one size fits all, already developed and just put your organization’s name on the title slide. This minimizes their effort and time investment. At Enowireless, every course is made to your exact and exacting specifications. We help you ensure what you are getting is what you really need even if at the beginning you weren’t too sure of what that was. We fit the class to your needs. We never fit you into our “standard”, one size fits all, class.

Course Aim:

Learn how to: Learn the key telecommunications, networking, and cellular communications concepts that underlie all wireless networks Define the important terms related to wireless networks and technologies Explain how the wireless technologies evolved, the various families of technologies, and their interrelationships Describe the strengths, limitations, and operation of each of the major wireless technologies currently in use around the world List the factors that are driving the emergence of 2.5/3G, WiFi, and WiMAX technologies Describe how 2.5G/3G, WiFi, and WiMAX technologies fit into the wireless landscape Identify those areas and mechanisms that may help or hinder the investigations and law enforcement personnel in the performance of their duties

Course Outline

Part1: Radio Waves and Their Properties Radio waves: What they are “RF” or “radio frequencies”: What are they? Amplitude, frequency, and phase: Three properties that define a radio wave Some basic trigonometry: Sine function, the building block of all that follows The electromagnetic spectrum from zero to infinity Radio waves versus RF versus X-rays versus light: What stays the same, what changes? Radio waves: How they propagate Amplitude, power, and signal strength: Why 4+4 makes 16 and 9+25 makes 64 Transmitted power versus received power: Distance dependencies Free space propagation Plane earth model Propagation in urban, suburban, and rural areas, over water and mountains Propagation versus fading, fading models and countermeasures Modulation techniques Modulation: What is it? Or: without it there is no communication! Analog modulation techniques and their historical usage Amplitude Modulation (AM) Frequency Modulation (FM) Digital modulation techniques and their historical usage Amplitude Shift Keying (ASK) Frequency Shift Keying (FSK) Phase Shift Keying (PSK) Binary versus multi-level digital modulation techniques Part 2: A Primer on Telecommunication Systems Analog communications revisited Time functions as signals; prime example: human speech Power spectral density AM and FM revisited Noise characteristics and statistical description Spectrum and bandwidth as a public resource Digital communications The end-to-end digital path: What are the issues and tradeoffs Channel capacity, bit rate, modulation complexity, and spectral efficiency: ASK, FSK, PSK revisited Modulation complexity as it relates to the evolving technologies Multiple access: The problem and solutions FDMA versus TDMA versus CDMA Key concepts of networking Circuit and packet switching concepts Voice and data networks Evolution to voice over IP Part 3: Wireless Communication Systems Fundamental architecture of cellular systems Frequency reuse, reuse factor Control versus traffic channels Capacity and channel assignment issues Overlapping cells and hand-off (handover) process Call processing and signaling issues Camping process and mobile identification/registration procedures Mobile originated call set up procedures Mobile terminated call set up procedures Location area updates and (mobile) paging procedures Key aspects of call progress, measurements, reports, and their functionality Roaming issues, signaling, and authentication procedures Part 4: Wireless Technologies: Their Drivers and Implementations Analog systems and AMPS Evolution of AMPS and the FDMA/TDMA/CDMA “mega” debate Evolution of IS-54 and IS-136: The Cingular and ATT Wireless paradigms Qualcomm, CDMA, and IS-95: The impossible-to-work technology that actually works phenomenally well! A relatively small but important player: iDEN™, Nextel, and the merger of Nextel and Sprint Development of GSM in Europe and its “export” to the rest of the world, including the USA Evolution of GSM to GPRS and EDGE and on to UMTS Evolution of IS95 to 1xRTT, 3xRTT, 1xEVDO, and 1xEVDV A brief glimpse into the more distant future: UWB CDMA, OFDM, and what next? Part 4 : Case Study: An In-depth study of the Technology of Interest to the Audience (optional fifth day) Detailed structure and operation Strengths and limitations Areas of interest or concern from the investigations/enforcement perspective *Conclusion: Course Recap, Q/A, and Evaluations