Welcome to Portugal for the 2002 International Symposium on Personal, Indoor and Mobile Radio Communications.

We are in a particularly interesting and challenging time for the mobile telecommunications industry. On one hand, we have witnessed several years of extraordinary growth and technical development, with many countries implementing the vision that everyone should be able to communicate with anyone, anywhere, at any time. On the other hand, the promise of 3G, with its view of endless growth coming from data, is today hedged around by a high degree of uncertainty. There are doubts about what 3G will really deliver, when it will be ready, which is the better and cheaper technology, what the successful applications will be, and who will be willing to pay for it.

Portugal is a great place to hold this event. Portugal has been a leader in mobile communications since 1992, when we were one of the first countries in the world to deploy GSM. The first prepaid product was commercially launched here and today we have a penetration above 80 %, and the mobile networks have coverage close to 99% of the population, with the lowest tariffs in Europe.

Innovation has always been the driving force of development, with intense competition in products, aggressive marketing of new services and relentless technical development. Innovation remains the key element for the future of the industry and this symposium is a great opportunity to discuss it, by understanding and anticipating the right technology choices that will fulfil customer needs. The mix of industry and the academic world, which has always been a powerful engine of development and networking with fellow professionals, creates the right environment for knowledge sharing and potential partnerships.

On behalf of the 2002 PIMRC organisers, I warmly welcome you to join us and hope all of you will enjoy this symposium in Portugal.


Paulo Rodrigues da Silva

The 13th edition of the IEEE International Symposium on Personal, Indoor and Mobile Radio Communications is coming back to Europe, Lisbon in Portugal to be more specific. "Sailing the waves of the wireless oceans" is the motto, which tries to build a symbiosis between the place and the event. Some centuries ago, Portugal was one of the first European countries to sail the oceans in search of new horizons, new cultures, and new trades. Today, mobile and wireless communications are also in search of new horizons, new services and new applications, to be provided to customers, so that the technologies and capabilities being developed find themselves useful and successful. Each day, we telecommunications engineers find ourselves in an increasing need to interact with other areas of expertise, the development of services and applications for UMTS, and for systems beyond third generation, being a good example of that. Moreover, the blend between academia and industry is truly a need in these days, without which research and development would not evolve properly. The Technical Programme (technical sessions, tutorials, and panels) reflects this situation, spreading from the "traditional" areas of mobile radio to others that are becoming more and more interrelated, in the quest for an increasing personal use, more and more at indoors environments, in mobile and wireless communications. I think that this approach is well represented with this year's edition of PIMRC; our goals have been achieved.

This year's edition of PIMRC is being held in difficult times for those involved in mobile and wireless communications. Nevertheless, we had a response to the Call for Papers that surpassed our best expectations, since 648 papers were submitted, which constitutes an absolute record for PIMRC. From these, a total of 500 papers will be presented at the conference, 375 in oral presentations, and the remaining ones in poster sessions; roughly 60 % come from Europe and Africa, 25 % from Asia/Pacific, and 15 % from the Americas, which definitely give a global international perspective to the conference, and enable a true exchange of experiences and information worldwide. This has put an increased responsibility to all the team involved in organising the conference, and we can only hope that all those attending the conference find that we have fulfilled their expectations.

As Chairman of the Technical Programme Committee, I would like to thank all of those who have contributed to the success of the conference. First, the authors of the papers submitted to the conference, most of them of very high quality, who represent the reason for organising a conference. Secondly, the invited speakers, panels' members, tutorials' presenters, and sessions' chairpersons, who accepted the invitation to be here, hence providing an added value to the conference. Thirdly, the members of the Technical Programme Committee and the Board of Reviewers, who provided the necessary expertise and performed an excellent work in shaping the conference from the technical point of view. Last, but definitely not the least, all people involved in the organisation of the conference, not only from the Organising Committee, but students as well, for their very hard and dedicated work, without whom PIMRC'2002 would have never existed.

I hope that you enjoy both PIMRC and Lisbon. The former has certainly very good motives for attending. The latter is for sure a very pleasant place to visit, with interesting places to explore and a gastronomy to experience.


Luis M Correia