The 15 graduate and undergraduate students in this year's EE381K-11 class, "Principles of Wireless Communications," were treated to a field trip to Verizon's microcell located at the UT football stadium, called the Longhorn Stadium site. Verizon engineer and UT alumnus Bill Henderson and Dennis Vasgaard provided an in-depth description of Verizon's buildout of CDMA and EVDO cellsites, and demonstrated the CDMA and EVDO equipment at the working cellsite. Students were able to see, first hand, how microwave backhaul was used to provide access to the remote site, and they learned how the cellular industry is moving from circuit switched to packet switched technology throughout its network. Bill and Dennis also explained how Verizon serves the Texas market and how roaming and handover is conducted both locally in Austin and throughout the state. Verizon's move to LTE and 700 MHz was also explained in detail.

The EE381K-11 Wireless class, taught by Professor Ted Rappaport every spring, is the fundamental first year graduate course (also for top undergraduates). This year's class conducted a wireless symposium, where each student presented a research report to the class on a cutting edge topic of wireless. To see the topics covered, and the EE381K-11 syllabus, visit the main page or projects.