On behalf of the IEEE Communications Society and members of the Executive and Technical Program Committees, it is an honor and pleasure to invite you to participate in the Wireless Communications and Networking Conference—WCNC 2002. For the first time, the conference will be co-located with the Cellular Telephone and Internet Association’s (CTIA) Annual Conference at the Orlando Conference Center. This inaugural collaboration between the IEEE and CTIA promises to be a historic milestone event promoting the interaction of wireless researchers with leading Internet and wireless companies.

The technical challenges and opportunities in wireless are progressing at an unprecedented pace. The merging of technical research and business applications is increasingly important as traditional circuit, voice, and data services are intertwined with the Internet, and these important services are being delivered over rapidly changing network architectures. The Technical Committee has carefully considered an unusually broad range of high quality submissions to design a comprehensive program of technical papers, panels, and tutorial programs commensurate with this milestone for the IEEE Communications Society.

In our first affiliation with CTIA, we will have the opportunity to participate in selected CTIA events and also view exhibits, as the WCNC 2002 conference will be conveniently co-located at the Orlando Convention Center.

We also encourage you to plan ahead and take advantage of the wonderful opportunity to meet and exchange ideas with the largest gathering of wireless leaders. In addition, the Orlando area offers many exciting tourist sites including NASA's Cape Kennedy, Disneyworld, EPCOT, Universal Studios, etc.—truly an outstanding array of attractions in addition to WCNC 2002. I welcome you to the conference.