science

Wireless Valley

Wireless Valley is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Wireless Valley rather than just read about it. In short: Wireless Valley is a term that was coined by Professor Ted Rappaport in 1990 when he was a faculty member at Virginia Tech, and was used to describe the Roanoke/Blacksburg, Virginia region and the potential of research to create spin-out companies. In 1990 he and his students founded TSR Technologies, a company that made software-defined cellular and paging intercept and drive test equipment that was sold to Allen T…

Key takeaways

Wireless Valley belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Wireless Valley to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Wireless Valley from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Wireless Valley is a term that was coined by Professor Ted Rappaport in 1990 when he was a faculty member at Virginia Tech, and was used to describe the Roanoke/Blacksburg, Virginia region and the potential of research to create spin-out companies. In 1990 he and his students founded TSR Technologies, a company that made software-defined cellular and paging intercept and drive test equipment that was sold to Allen Telecom in 1993, and in 1995 Wireless Valley Communications, a company that pioneered the creation of computer-aided wireless network prediction and management software that was sold to Motorola in late 2005. This term was later used as nickname to describe several regional clusters of companies in the information technology sector, in analogy to California's Silicon Valley:

One such cluster is located in northern Stockholm, Sweden. This also included a number of companies that saw themselves as belonging to the new information based economy. Ericsson, the telecommunications supplier, has one of its main design centers in the Stockholm suburb of Kista. Finland also has a high-tech area in Espoo, sometimes called "Wireless Valley", based on Nokia and Nokia Siemens Networks. There is a secondary hub located in Oulu which is the base for other wireless specialist companies too. A third such cluster consists of the telecommunications formed in San Diego, based on Qualcomm A new high-tech program has been initialed in Nanjing, China, called 'China Wireless valley'. It is based on two national key laboratories of Southeast University.

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Wireless Valley

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Wireless Valley claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Wireless Valley before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Wireless Valley ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Wireless Valley

In research: Wireless Valley appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Wireless Valley in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Wireless Valley is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics High-technology business districts in the United States, Telecommunications economics, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Wireless Valley outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Wireless Valley in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Wireless Valley means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Wireless Valley out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Wireless Valley in simple terms?

Why does Wireless Valley matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Wireless Valley?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Wireless Valley.