Praise for Fundamentals of WiMAX

C H A P T E R 2Overview of WiMAXAfter years of development and uncertainty, a standards-based interoperable solution isemerging for wireless broadband. A broad industry consortium, the Worldwide Interoperabilityfor Microwave Access (WiMAX) Forum has begun certifying broadband wireless productsfor interoperability and compliance with a standard. WiMAX is based on wirelessmetropolitan area networking (WMAN) standards developed by the IEEE 802.16 group andadopted by both IEEE and the ETSI HIPERMAN group. In this chapter, we present a concisetechnical overview of the emerging WiMAX solution for broadband wireless. The purpose hereis to provide an executive summary before offering a more detailed exposition of WiMAX inlater chapters.We begin the chapter by summarizing the activities of the IEEE 802.16 group and its relationto WiMAX. Next, we discuss the salient features of WiMAX and briefly describe the physicalandMAC-layer characteristics of WiMAX. Service aspects, such as quality of service, security,and mobility, are discussed, and a reference network architecture is presented. The chapter endswith a brief discussion of expected WiMAX performance.2.1 Background on IEEE 802.16 and WiMAXThe IEEE 802.16 group was formed in 1998 to develop an air-interface standard for wirelessbroadband. The group’s initial focus was the development of a LOS-based point-to-multipointwireless broadband system for operation in the 10GHz–66GHz millimeter wave band. Theresulting standard—the original 802.16 standard, completed in December 2001—was based on asingle-carrier physical (PHY) layer with a burst time division multiplexed (TDM) MAC layer.Many of the concepts related to the MAC layer were adapted for wireless from the popular cablemodem DOCSIS (data over cable service interface specification) standard.33