EPP Faculty :: Alex Hills
Alex Hills | |
 | Phone: (907) 232-6088 Email: ahills@cmu.edu |
Distinguished Service Professor, Engineering and Public Policy and Electrical and Computer Engineering.
Research in wireless technology and telecommunications policy
B.S. 1964, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
M.S. 1969, Arizona State University
Ph.D. 1979, Carnegie Mellon University.
Carnegie Mellon, 1992-.
Dr. Alex Hills and his team built the world’s first big Wi-Fi network. As described in his new book, Wi-Fi and the Bad Boys of Radio , the team overcame major obstacles to create the first wireless campus. It was an unheard of idea when Hills started the project in 1993. The new network, which came to be called “Wireless Andrew,” was the prototype used by many others to build Wi-Fi networks now in use around the world.
Working with colleagues, Professor Hills also developed a methodology for designing Wi-Fi networks. He invented a semi-automated design tool called “Rollabout” to dramatically improve and speed up the Wi-Fi network design process.
Dr. Hills has written and lectured on the potential for wireless to deliver basic telephone service in the developing world and on its implications for anytime-anywhere computing. He has broad experience in information technology, including both technical and business aspects. And he is an expert in telecommunications policy, which encompasses aspects of engineering, law and economics.
He has served as Vice Provost and Chief Information Officer at Carnegie Mellon, founding director of the university’s Information Networking Institute, Alaska’s Deputy Commissioner of Administration and chief telecommunications official, and a US Army officer and company commander in South Korea.
Representative Publications
Hills, A., Wi-Fi and the Bad Boys of Radio, Dog Ear Publishing, 2011.
Hills, A. et al, "Crossing the Chasm of Establishing Wi-Fi" in The
Innovation Journey of Wi-Fi, University of Cambridge Press, 2011.
Hills, A., "Dependability on the Last Frontier," Proceedings, 38th Annual
IEEE/IFIP International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks (DSN
2008), June 24-27, 2008, Anchorage, Alaska.
Hills, A., "Riding the Waves," in Engineering the Future: Science,
Technology, and the Design Process, Key Curriculum Press, Emeryville,
California, 2008, pp. 245-252.
Hills, A., "Smart Wi-Fi," Scientific American, vol. 285, no. 10, pp. 86-94,
October 2005.
Hills, A. and B. Friday, "Radio Resource Management in Wireless LANs," IEEE
Communications, vol. 42, no. 12, pp. S9-S14, December 2004.
Hills, A. and J. Schlegel, "Rollabout: A Wireless Design Tool," IEEE
Communications, vol. 42, no. 2, pp. 132-138, February 2004.
Hills, A., J. Schlegel, and B. Jenkins, "Estimating Signal Strengths in the
Design of an Indoor Wireless Network," IEEE Transactions on Wireless
Communications, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 17-19, January 2004.
Hills, A., "Large-Scale Wireless LAN Design," (Invited paper), IEEE
Communications, vol. 39, no. 11, pp. 98-104, November 2001.
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