The IEEE 802.11 Standard Series -- Theoretical Aspects of Wireless LAN Performance -- Spectrum Management Algorithms -- Cross-Layer Architecture -- Simulation Environment -- Simulation Results -- Conclusions and Outlook.

Growing demands of wireless local area communication are prominent for many day-to-day activities. Applications such as multimedia or VoIP which rely on tight quality-of-service (QoS) support are widely used. In order to handle these applications properly, the data transmission over radio channels should be enhanced by means of spectrum management. Andreas Könsgen describes two major areas of spectrum management, namely the coordination of neighbouring networks with overlapping ranges by controlling different transmission parameters and the channel allocation by the base station inside a radio cell using a cross-layer approach. Theoretical analyses and simulations demonstrate the usage of these methods and show the QoS enhancements which can be achieved. Finally, the author discusses the practical meaning of spectrum management and presents an outlook for future enhancements.