This actually is the only book that presents a treatment of wireless communincations in throughly rigorous way, and yet does not loose touch with practice. The usual books in digital communication, especially the industry standard Salehi, have mostly been outdated by this book.I have done coursework with Viswanath, and was one of the students on which the initial drafts of this books was "tried and tested." Viswanath has few equals in his research area (which itself he keeps expanding), and consistently amazes everyone with how closely he is in touch with what the industry is doing. This is reflected throughout the book.The book can be reqd with the standard prereqs - a good understanding of undergraduate to first year graduate probability is required understand anything in communications theory, so that goes without saying. Some parts of the book will carry more juice for people who have a good knowledge of information theory, but Tse & Viswanath include a beautifully written appendix for people without this knowledge. The appendix is worth reading by itself, even for people who have taken courses in information theory before! The chapter that compares various wireless systems alone is worth the price of the book.As another reviewer pointed out, the exercises are not all simple. These were given in a homework setting, and there were TA's to assist people with the problems. They may be a little hard to solve alone.