Patent ID: 8038065

Claim:
An encoded information reading (EIR) terminal comprising: a microprocessor electrically coupled to a system bus; a memory communicatively coupled to said microprocessor; an encoded information reading (EIR) device selected from the group consisting of a bar code reading device, an RFID reading device, and a card reading device, said EIR device configured to perform at least one of outputting raw message data containing an encoded message and outputting decoded message data corresponding to an encoded message; and a wireless communication interface comprising a radio frequency front end configured to perform at least one of receiving a first radio signal and transmitting a second radio signal, said radio frequency front end electrically coupled to at least one of an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) electrically coupled to said system bus and a digital-to-analog converter (DAC) electrically coupled to said system bus; wherein said microprocessor is configured to execute at least one of a base-band encoder software program and a base-band decoder software program; wherein said base-band encoder software program is configured to produce a first encoded bit stream by performing at least one of the following functions: source encoding of a first bit stream, encryption, channel encoding, multiplexing, modulation, frequency spreading, and media access control; wherein said DAC is configured to output to said radio frequency front end an analog signal corresponding to said first encoded bit stream; wherein said ADC is configured to output a second encoded bit stream corresponding to an analog signal produced by said radio frequency front end; and wherein said base-band decoder software program is configured to produce a second bit stream corresponding to said second encoded bit stream by performing at least one of the following functions: media access control, frequency de-spreading, de-modulation, de-multiplexing, channel decoding, decryption, and source decoding.