Periyasamy.P Sathyanarayanan.V.

B
hai2sasi@gmail.com narayanan_mca0508@yahoo.co.in

Velammal College Of Management And Computer Studies

Chennai - 66

WORLDWIDE INTEROPERABILITY FOR MICROWAVE ACCESS

(Wi – MAX)

ABSTRACT
The broadband wireless access industry, which provides high-rate network connections to
stationary sites, has matured to the point at which it now has a standard for second-generation wireless
metropolitan area networks. Wireless MAN air interface, sets the stage for widespread and effective
deployments worldwide. WiMAX, or Worldwide Interoperability For Microwave Access, is a wireless
Internet service designed to cover wide geographical areas serving large numbers of users at low cost.
WiMAX is considered one of the best solutions for “last mile” distribution. In contrast, wireless local area
networks are designed to provide network access within an office environment or a home or hotspots.

KEYWORDS
IEEE – Institute of Electrical And Electronics Engineering, ETSI - European Telecommunications Standards
Institute, Wi-Fi-Wireless Fidelity, WiMAX- Worldwide Interoperability For Microwave Access, BWA – Broadband
Wireless Access

1.0 INTRODUCTION

IEEE 802.16 is a standard for be used to setup a metropolitan area

broadband wireless access, also known as
WiMAX. There are many advantages of
systems based on 802.16, the ability to
provide service, even in areas that are
hard for wired infrastructure to reach
and the ability to overcome the physical
limitations of traditional wired
infrastructure. The propagation of
WLANs is driving the demand for
broadband connectivity back to the
Internet. Systems built on 802.16
standard represent an easily deployable
third pipe capable of delivering flexible
and affordable last-mile broadband
access for millions of subscribers in
homes and businesses throughout the
world. The standard will offer wire-less
connectivity of up to 30 miles.
The WiMAX Forum has been
developed in order to promote the use and
interoperability of the 802.16/HIPERMAN
standard world-wide of the standard are its
widespread reach because of which it can
network and its data capacity of 75 mbps -
broadband.
It has been serving enterprises and
operators for years, to the great satisfaction
of its users. However, the new IP-based
standard developed by the IEEE 802.16 is
likely to accelerate adoption of the
technology. It will expand the scope of
usage thanks to: the possibility of operating
in licensed and unlicensed frequency bands,
unique performance under Non-Line-of-
Sight (NLOS) conditions, Quality of Service
(QoS) awareness, extension to nomad city.
Technology is evaluated based on
performance, coverage area, reliability,
security, and mobility. A proposed
infrastructure solution is also presented. This
paper shall provide the technical information
on each technology that is relevant to
wireless mobile access and discuss the pros
and cons of each technology applying it to
the creation of a wireless vehicular network.
2.0 WHAT IS WIMAX?
WiMAX is an industry trade 3.1 Models of IEEE 802.16
organization formed by leading Ø Fixed
communications component and § IEEE 802.16 standard
equipment companies to promote and Ø Portable
§ IEEE 802.16-2004 standard
certify compatibility and ( revises & replaces IEEE
interoperability of broadband wireless 802.16a & 802.16REVd
access equipment that conforms to the versions)
IEEE* 802.16. WiMAX works very much Ø Mobile
like cell phone technology in that reasonable IEEE 802.16e
proximity to a base station is required to
establish a data link to the Internet. Users IEEE Standards View of Wireless Network
within 3 to 5 miles of the base station will be Technologies
WWAN
able to establish a link using non-line-of- 802.20
sight (NLOS) technology with data rates as WiMAX
(proposed)
MAN
70 Mbps
high as 75Mbps. Users up to 30 miles away New ~50 Km

from the base station with an antenna standard for 802.16a/

e
Fixed
mounted for line-of-sight (LOS) to the base
®
station will be able to connect at data rates Wi-Fi WLAN
11-54 Mbps
Includes ~100m
approaching 280Mbps. 802.11a/b/g. 802.11a/b/
g
WiLANs, on the other hand, provide Products PAN
~1.5 Mbps
wireless network connectivity between <10 m
802.15.1
devices with in a given office or residence (Bluetooth)

location. The 802.11b standard equipment

can provide up to 11Mbps and 802.11g
standard equipment will support data rates
of up to 54Mbps.
3.0 OVERVIEW OF THE IEEE
802.16a STANDARDS
. A standard that would enable
companies to build systems that will
effectively reach underserved business and
residential markets in a manner that supports
infrastructure build outs comparable to
cable, DSL, and fiber. For years, the wildly
successful 802.11x or WiFi wireless LAN
technology has been used in BWA
applications along with a host of proprietary
based solutions. When the WLAN
technology was examined closely, it was
evident that the overall design and feature
set available was not well suited for outdoor
BWA applications. It could be done, it is
being done, but with limited capacity in
terms of bandwidth and subscribers, range
and a host of other issues made it clear this
approach while a great fit for indoor WLAN
was a poor fit for outdoor.
Figure 1
3.2 IEEE 802.16a
Created by creative
The 802.16a standard for 2-11 GHz
is a wireless metropolitan area network
(MAN) technology that will provide
broadband wireless connectivity to Fixed,
Portable and Nomadic devices. It can be
used to connect 802.11 hotspots to the
Internet, provide campus connectivity, and
provide a wireless alternative to cable and
DSL for last mile broadband access. It
provides up to 50-kilometers of service area
range, allows users to get broadband
connectivity without needing direct line of
sight with the base station, and provides
total data rates of up to 280 Mbps per base
station, which is enough bandwidth to
simultaneously support hundreds of
businesses with T1/E1-type connectivity and
thousands of homes with DSL-type
connectivity with a single base station.
4.0 CANDIDATE TECHNOLOGIES
4.1 Wi-FI (802.11p)
Wi-Fi was developed by the IEEE
802.11 working group and was initially
designed to be used indoors at close range
but has recently ventured into mobility. It
includes the approved 802.11a, b, g, n, and
specifications. Wi-Fi is the first high-speed
wireless technology deployed in areas such
as hotspots, homes, offices, airports, etc.
Wi-Fi hotspots have become quite popular
and have allowed mobile users to remain
productive while on the go. Wi- Fi,
however, is limited by its range; users must
remain within 300 feet (for 802.11a) or 1000
feet (for 802.11p) of a base station.
4. 2 WiMAX (IEEE 802.16e)
WiMAX is the latest wireless
technology to be approved by the IEEE
802.16 working group. It is a standard for
point-to multipoint wireless networking. It’s
intended to deliver “last mile” broadband
connectivity to individual home or business
locations and its data rates are comparable
with cable and Digital Subscriber Line
(DSL) rates. Phone companies are hoping it
will be a replacement for their aging legacy
wired networks. In fact, it is seen as the
wireless replacement for a wired broadband
connection.
The IEEE 802.16e version is an extension of
the IEEE 802.16 standard that was drafted
specifically to deal with mobility. It is
backward compatible with all IEEE 802.16
standards. And while IEEE 802.16 was
conceived as a back-end technology, IEEE
802.16e has the capacity to be adapted for
individual computers, and has the quality of
service features to support voice. It provides
connectivity for high-speed data in both
stationary and mobile situations. It will
enable mobile users to maintain their
network connection while moving at speeds
up to between 75-93 miles per hour. The
upper speed limit depends on the distance of
the access point from the base station as well
as other transmission quality issues, i.e., air
density, solar flares, electromagnetic
radiation, etc.
WiMAX is a point-to-multipoint
(PMP) technology that operates in the 10 to
66GHz and sub11GHz wavelengths. At
higher frequencies, line of sight is a
requirement and it is compatible with
technologies such as asynchronous transfer
mode (ATM) and internet protocol (IP). It
can provide service over distances up to
30 miles. The standard covers both media
access control (MAC) and physical (PHY)
layers for combined fixed and mobile
operation in licensed frequency bands. The
MAC layer is optimized for longer distances
because it was designed for BWA.
 WiMAX-based solutions include
many advantages, such as robust security
features, good quality of service, and mesh
and smart antenna technology that will allow
better utilization of the spectrum resources.
The WiMAX-based solutions are set up and
deployed like cellular systems using base
resources. The WiMAX-based solutions are
set up and deployed like cellular systems
using base station.
5.0 BENEFITS OF 802.16
TECHNOLOGY
Cost & Investment Risk
Interoperable equipment lets
operators purchase WiMAX Certified™
equipment from more than one vendor
A stable, standards-based platform
improves Op Ex by sparking innovation at
every layer, Network Management, antennas
and more.,
Higher throughput at longer ranges (up
to 50 km)
Better bits/second/Hz at longer
ranges
Scalable system capacity
Easy addition of new sectors
supported with flexible channels maximizes
cell capacity, allowing operators to scale the
network as the customer base grows.
Flexible channel bandwidths
accommodate spectrum allocations for both
licensed and unlicensed spectrum
MAC protocol scales efficiently
from one to hundreds of subscribers
Coverage
Advanced techniques (mesh, beam-
forming, MIMO) improve non-line-of-sight
performance
Superior system gain allows greater
penetration of obstacles at longer distances
Quality of Service
Dynamic TDMA (Grant/Request)
MAC supports new latency sensitive
services such as voice and video
Help enable last-mile broadband
deployment wirelessly
Service providers could use an
802.16 equipment to deliver T1/E1-speed or
higher network connectivity to their Wi-Fi
access points. Today, it can take up to three
months or more for service providers to
provision a T1/E1 network line for a
business customer. With wireless broadband
technology, a service provider could
provision the same network access in a
matter of days and at a fraction of the cost.
In addition, a service provider could offer
"on demand" high speed bandwidth for
events such as tradeshows, or for nomadic
businesses such as construction sites with
sporadic broadband connectivity needs.
5.1 WiMAX More Flexibility And
Security
Unlike WLAN, WiMAX provides a
media access control (MAC) layer that uses
a grant-request mechanism to authorize the
exchange of data. This feature allows better
exploitation of the radio resources, in
particular with smart antennas, and
independent management of the traffic of
every user. This simplifies the support of
real-time and voice applications. One of the
inhibitors to widespread deployment of
WLAN was the poor security feature of the
first releases. WiMAX proposes the full
range of security features to ensure secured
data exchange:
ü Terminal authentication by
exchanging certificates to prevent
rogue devices,
ü User authentication using the
Extensible Authentication Protocol
(EAP),
ü Data encryption using the Data
Encryption Standard (DES) or
Advanced Encryption
ü Standard(AES), both much more
robust than the Wireless Equivalent
Privacy (WEP)
ADVANTAGES
A single WiMAX main station
can serve hundreds of users.
Endpoints install within days
instead of the weeks required for
wired connections.
Data rates as high as 280Mbps
and distances of 30 miles are
possible. Users can operate
mobile within 3-5 miles of a base
station at data rates up to
75Mbps.
No FCC radio licensing is
required.
Figure 3
There are basically three different
options:
Broadband access - In your home,
you have either a DSL or cable modem.
At the office, your company may be
using a T1 or a T3 line.
WiFi access - In your home, you
may have set up a WiFi router that lets
you surf the Web while you lounge with
your laptop. On the road, you can find
WiFi hot spots in restaurants, hotels,
coffee shops and libraries.
Dial-up access - If you are still using
dial-up, chances are that either
broadband access is not available, or you
think that broadband access is too
expensive.
The main problems with broadband
access are that it is pretty expensive and
it doesn't reach all areas. The main
problem with WiFi access is that hot
spots are very small, so coverage is
sparse. What if there were a new
technology that solved all of these
problems? This new technology would
provide:
• The high speed of broadband
service
• Wireless rather than wired
access, so it would be a lot less
expensive than cable or DSL and
much easier to extend to
suburban and rural areas
• Broad coverage like the cell
phone network instead of small
WiFi hotspots
This system is actually coming into
being right now, and it is called
WiMAX. WiMAX is short for
Worldwide Interoperability for
Microwave Access, and it also goes by
the IEEE name 802.16. WiMAX could
replace cable and DSL services,
providing universal Internet access just
about anywhere you go. WiMAX has the
potential to do to broadband Internet
access what cell phones have done to
phone access.
LIMITATIONS
Line-of-sight (LOS) is required
for long distance (5-30 mile)connections
Heavy rains can disrupt the service.
Other wireless electronics in
the vicinity can interfere with the
WiMAX connection and cause a
reduction in data throughput or even a
total disconnect.
6.0 HOW WIMAX WORKS
In practical terms, WiMAX
would operate similar to WiFi but at
higher speeds, over greater distances and
for a greater number of users. WiMAX
could potentially erase the suburban and
rural blackout areas that currently have
no broadband Internet access because
phone and cable companies have not yet
run the necessary wires to those remote
locations.
A WiMAX system consists of two parts:
A WiMAX tower, similar in
concept to a cell-phone tower - A single
WiMAX tower can provide coverage to
a very large area -- as big as 3,000
square miles (~8,000 square km).
this mode, WiMAX uses a lower
frequency range -- 2 GHz to 11 GHz
(similar to WiFi).
There is line-of-sight service, where
a fixed dish antenna points straight at the
WiMAX tower from a rooftop or pole.
The line-of-sight connection is stronger
and more stable, so it's able to send a lot
of data with fewer errors. Line-of-sight
transmissions use higher frequencies,
with ranges reaching a possible 66 GHz.
At higher frequencies, there is less
interference and lots more bandwidth.

A WiMAX receiver - The

receiver and antenna could be a small
box or PCMCIA card, or they could be
built into a laptop the way WiFi access is
today.

A WiMAX tower station can

connect directly to the Internet using a
high-bandwidth, wired connection (for
example, a T3 line). It can also connect
to another WiMAX tower using a line-
of-sight, microwave link. This
connection to a second tower (often
referred to as a backhaul), along with
the ability of a single tower to cover up Figure 4
to 3,000 square miles, is what allows
WiMAX to provide coverage to remote IEEE 802.16 Specifications
rural areas.
• Range - 30-mile (50-km) radius
What this points out is that WiMAX from base station
actually can provide two forms of • Speed - 70 megabits per second
wireless service: • Line-of-sight not needed between
user and base station
There is the non-line-of-sight, WiFi • Frequency bands - 2 to 11 GHz
sort of service, where a small antenna on and 10 to 66 GHz (licensed and
your computer connects to the tower. In unlicensed bands)
7.0 THE EVOLUTION BEGINS
The next step for broadband
wireless technology will help usher in a new
era of applications and devices, as well as
new thinking about how we view broadband
the broadband access realm, there is more
soon on the way, as the WiMAX Forum and
its member companies look to make Mobile
WiMAX, based on the IEEE 802.16e
standard, a commercial endeavor by
sometime early next year. And many people
in the WiMAX community are betting hat
Mobile WiMAX will do what Fixed
WiMAX and other fixed forms of broadband
access have not been able to do—inspire a
whole new way of thinking about and
defining broadband service a the broadband
user experience.
Figure - 3 Forecast WiMAX
That name isn’t so much an alter
ego, as it is a much better descriptor of what
the technology actually provides to its users,
as well as an indicator of exactly how it may
change our current concept of broadband
technology and access.
“WiMAX will broaden the market
for broadband everywhere in the world and
make it the kind of market that it should be,
one that is counted in number of people
connected rather than in the number of
households connected,” Subramanian said.
Carlton O’Neal, vice president of marketing
for Alvarion, added, “Beginning this year,
there will be a move to the idea of personal
broadband, and it can change broadband in
the same way that [personal
communications services] changed the cell
phone market. What will happen with
Mobile WiMAX is that you will have a
personal broadband service that is wrapped
in a device. The concept of broadband will
go up a notch and become disconnected
from location. People will be asking each
other, ‘Who is your personal broadband
provider?’” If it seems a stretch for the
average communications consumer to start
thinking in those terms about broadband,
then maybe you just aren’t young enough to
know better about how the nature of
communications, and by extension
broadband, is already changing. Mobile
substitution of landline service, the so-called
act of “cutting the cord,” has been on the
rise for the last few years, and mobile
substitution in the U.S.
Market for WiMAX
WiMAX will boost today's highly
fragmented BWA market thanks to
standardization and interoperability, state-
of-the-art radio efficiency with NLOS
capability, and strong support from the radio
equipment manufacturers and chipset
industries. WiMAX will also target the data-
centric mobility market with the
introduction of lower power consumption
chipsets. The strong support from some of
the most important chipsets manufacturers
such as Intel is a key enabler for the success
of WiMAX, since it will lead to wide
availability of affordable WiMAX-enabled
terminals (e.g., laptops, PDAs, etc.).
In emerging countries, the main
focus of broadband deployment is on urban
and sub-urban areas, and will remain so in
the near future. The low POTS penetration
and the low quality of the copper pair
prevent mass scale DSL deployment and
foster the need for alternate broadband
technologies. In this context, WiMAX is
positioned as an excellent option. Moreover,
the possibility of offering broadband
services in combination with voice services
will gradually lead to narrowband WLL
substitution.
8.0 CONCLUSION

WiMAX will bridge the digital Sathyanarayanan.V.B

divide and thanks to competitive Periyasamy .P
equipment prices, the scope of WiMAX II MCA
deployment will broaden to cover markets Velammal College Of Management
where the low POTS penetration, high And Computer studies.
DSL unbundling costs, or poor copper Chennai -66
quality have acted as a brake on extensive
high-speed Internet and voice over
broadband.

WiMAX will reach its peak by

making Portable Internet a reality. When
WiMAX chipsets are integrated into
laptops and other portable devices, it will
provide high-speed data services on the
move, extending today's limited coverage
of public WLAN to metropolitan areas.
Integrated into new generation networks
with seamless roaming between various
accesses, it will enable end users to enjoy
an "Always Best Connected" experience.

REFERENCES

[1] IEEE 802.16-2001, “IEEE Standard for

Local and Metropolitan Area Networks —
Part 16: Air Interface for Fixed Broadband
Wireless Access Systems,” Apr. 8, 2002.

[2] IEEE 802.16.2-2001, “IEEE

Recommended Practice for Local and
Metropolitan Area Networks — Coexistence
of Fixed Broadband Wireless Access
Systems,” Sept. 10, 2001.

REFERENCE LINKS:
WiMAX Forum
http://www.wimaxforum.org/news/down
loads/wimax_wifi_june3.pd
IEEE 802.11 Wireless Local Area
Networks
http://grouper.ieee.org/groups/802/11/in
dex.html
What is WiLAN and Why Should I
Care? http://www.sss-
mag.com/wlan.html#info 2