WIMAX TECHNOLOGY

Broadband access

Many companies are closely examining WiMAX for "last mile" connectivity at high data rates. The resulting competition may bring lower pricing for both home and business customers, or bring broadband access to places where it has been economically unavailable. Prior to WiMAX, many operators have been using proprietary fixed wireless technologies for broadband services.

WiMAX access was used to assist with communications in Aceh, Indonesia, after the tsunami in December 2004. All communication infrastructures, other than Ham Radio in the area were destroyed making the survivors unable to communicate with people outside the disaster area and vice versa. WiMAX provided broadband access that helped regenerate communication to and from Aceh.

Intel also worked to install a WiMAX network in New Orleans to assist with communications efforts in the aftermath Hurricane Katrina.

[edit] Subscriber units

WiMAX subscriber units are available in both indoor and outdoor versions from several manufacturers. Self-install indoor units are convenient, but radio losses mean that the subscriber must be significantly closer to the WiMAX base station than with professionally installed external units. As such, indoor installed units require a much higher infrastructure investment as well as operational cost (site lease, backhaul, maintenance) due to the high number of base stations required to cover a given area. Indoor units are comparable in size to a cable modem or DSL modem. Outdoor units are roughly the size of a laptop PC, and their installation is comparable to a residential satellite dish.

With the advent of mobility ("16e"), there is an increasing focus on portable units. This includes handsets (similar to cellular smartphones) and PC peripherals (PC Cards or USB dongles). In addition, there is much emphasis from operators on consumer electronics devices (games terminals, MP3 players and the like); it is notable this is more similar to WiFi than 3G cellular technologies.

[edit] Mobile applications

Some cellular companies are evaluating WiMAX as a means of increasing bandwidth for a variety of data-intensive applications; Sprint Nextel announced in mid-2006 that it would invest about US$ 3 billion in a WiMAX technology buildout over the next few years[2].

In line with these possible applications is the technology's ability to serve as a high bandwidth "backhaul" for Internet or cellular phone traffic from remote areas back to an Internet backbone. Although the cost per user/point of WiMAX in a remote application will be higher, it is not limited to such applications, and may be an answer to reducing the cost of T1/E1 backhaul as well. Given the limited wired infrastructure in some developing countries, the costs to install a WiMAX station in conjunction with an existing cellular tower or even as a solitary hub are likely to be small in comparison to developing a wired solution. Areas of low population density and flat terrain are particularly suited to WiMAX and its range. For countries that have skipped wired infrastructure as a result of prohibitive costs and unsympathetic geography, WiMAX can enhance wireless infrastructure in an inexpensive, decentralized, deployment-friendly and effective manner.

[edit] Technical information

WiMAX is a term coined to describe standard, interoperable implementations of IEEE 802.16 wireless networks, in a rather similar way to Wi-Fi being interoperable implementations of the IEEE 802.11 Wireless LAN standard. However, WiMAX is very different from Wi-Fi in the way it works.

[edit] MAC layer/data link layer

In Wi-Fi the media access controller (MAC) uses contention access — all subscriber stations that wish to pass data through a wireless access point (AP) are competing for the AP's attention on a random interrupt basis. This can cause subscriber stations distant from the AP to be repeatedly interrupted by closer stations, greatly reducing their throughput. This makes services such as Voice over IP (VoIP) or IPTV, which depend on an essentially constant Quality of Service (QoS) depending on data rate and interruptibility, difficult to maintain for more than a few simultaneous users.

In contrast, the 802.16 MAC uses a scheduling algorithm for which the subscriber station need compete once (for initial entry into the network). After that it is allocated an access slot by the base station. The time slot can enlarge and contract, but remains assigned to the subscriber station which means that other subscribers cannot use it. In addition to being stable under overload and over-subscription (unlike 802.11), the 802.16 scheduling algorithm can also be more bandwidth efficient. The scheduling algorithm also allows the base station to control QoS parameters by balancing the time-slot assignments among the application needs of the subscriber stations.

[edit] Physical layer

The original WiMAX standard (IEEE 802.16) specified WiMAX for the 10 to 66 GHz range. 802.16a, updated in 2004 to 802.16-2004, added specifications for the 2 to 11 GHz range. 802.16-2004 was updated to 802.16e in 2005 and uses scalable orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (SOFDMA) as opposed to the OFDM version with 256 sub-carriers (of which 200 are used) in 802.16d. More advanced versions including 802.16e also bring Multiple Antenna Support through Multiple-input multiple-output communications (MIMO). This brings potential benefits in terms of coverage, self installation, power consumption, frequency re-use and bandwidth efficiency. 802.16e also adds a capability for full mobility support. The WiMAX certification allows vendors with 802.16d products to sell their equipment as WiMAX certified, thus ensuring a level of interoperability with other certified products, as long as they fit the same profile.

Most commercial interest is in the 802.16d and .16e standards, since the lower frequencies used in these variants suffer less from inherent signal attenuation and therefore give improved range and in-building penetration. Already today, a number of networks throughout the World are in commercial operation using certified WiMAX equipment compliant with the 802.16d standard.

[edit] Comparison with Wi-Fi

Possibly due to the fact both WiMAX and Wi-Fi begin with the same two letters, are based upon IEEE standards beginning with 802. and both have a connection to wireless connectivity and the Internet, comparisons and confusion between the two are frequent. Despite this, both standards are aimed at different applications.

* WiMAX is a long range system, covering many kilometers, that uses licensed or unlicensed spectrum to deliver a point-to-point connection to the Internet from an ISP to an end user. Different 802.16 standards provide different types of access, from mobile (analogous to access via a cellphone) to fixed (an alternative to wired access, where the end user's wireless termination point is fixed in location.)
* Wi-Fi is a shorter range system, typically hundreds of meters, that uses unlicensed spectrum to provide access to a network, typically covering only the network operator's own property. Typically Wi-Fi is used by an end user to access their own network, which may or may not be connected to the Internet. If WiMAX provides services analogous to a cellphone, Wi-Fi is more analogous to a cordless phone.
* WiMAX has QoS (Quality of Service) whilst Wi-Fi is 'best effort', which makes the former a more robust telecom application: QoS allows preferential treatment of certain service flows (such as voice over data) and/or customers.
* WiMAX is highly scalable from what are called 'femto' scale remote stations to multi-sector 'maxi' scale base that handle complex tasks of management and mobile handoff functions and include MIMO-AAS smart antenna subsystems.

Due to the ease and low cost with which Wi-Fi can be deployed, it is sometimes used to provide Internet access to third parties within a single room or building available to the provider, sometimes informally, and sometimes as part of a business relationship. For example, many coffee shops, hotels, and transportation hubs contain Wi-Fi access points providing access to the Internet for patrons.

[edit] Spectrum allocation issues

The 802.16 specification applies across a wide swath of the RF spectrum, and theoretically WiMAX can function on any frequency below 10GHz, (higher would decrease the range of a Base Station to a few 100 meters in an urban environment).

There is no uniform global licensed spectrum for WiMAX, however the WiMAX Forum has published three licsensed spectrum profiles: 2.3GHz, 2.5GHz and 3.5GHz, in an effort to decrease cost: Economies of scale dictate that higher the amount of WiMAX embedded devices such as mobile phones and WiMAX embedded laptops are produced, the lower the unit cost. (The two highest cost components of producing a mobile phone is silicon and the extra radio needed for each band). Similar economy of scale benefit applies to the production of Base Stations.

In the unlicensed band, 5.x GHz is the approved profile. Telecom companies will not widely use this spectrum other than potentially for backhaul, as they cannot own and control the spectrum.

When the GSM standard was first set, no substantial efforts were initially made to limit the amount of fequencies used for GSM globally. This led to reletively high production cost of handsets and Base Stations. Only late in the game was this revisted, leading to 4 frequency bands. The WiMAX Forum likely has tried to apply lessons learnt from other standards.

In the US, the biggest segment available is around 2.5 GHz[3], and is already assigned, primarily to Sprint Nextel and Clearwire. Elsewhere in the world, the most likely bands used will be the Forum approved ones, with 2.3 GHz probably being most important in Asia. Some countries in Asia like India, Vietnam and Indonesia will use a mix of 3.3 GHz and other frequencies.


Analogue TV bands (700MHz) may become available for WiMAX use, but await the complete rollout of digital TV, and there will be other uses suggested for that spectrum. In the U.S. The FCC auction for this spectrum is scheduled for the end of 2007. EU commissioner Viviane Reding has suggested re-allocation of 500-800 MHz spectrum for wireless communication, including WiMAX [1].

WiMAX profiles define channel size, TDD/FDD and other necessary attributes in order to have inter-operating products. The current fixed profiles define for both TDD and FDD profiles. At this point, all of the mobile profiles are TDD only. The fixed profiles have channel sizes of 3.5 MHz, 5 MHz, 7 MHz and 10 MHz. The mobile profiles are 5 MHz, 8.75 MHz and 10 MHz. (Note: the 802.16 standard allows far wider variety of channels, but only the above subsets are supported as WiMAX profiles).

A major trend in capabilities that mitigates concerns about homogeneous global spectrum is the increasing ability of multi-mode and multi-spectrum wireless ICs and antenna components. This provides a form of de-facto deregulation of spectrum as multiple spectra can be aggregated via hardware. This trend has appeared in the cellular and now will advance in the field based on the WiMAX standard for wireless broadband. Keep in mind that this is the 1st broad standard for WWAN systems under which standard multi-mode silicon is being developed.

One of the significant advantages of advanced wireless systems such as WiMAX is spectral efficiency. For example, 802.16-2004 (fixed) has a spectral efficiency of 3.7 bit/s/hertz. But all 3.5-4G wireless systems similarly offer spectral efficiencies that are within a few tenths of a percent. The more notable advantage comes from combining SOFDMA with smart antenna technologies. This multiplies the effective spectral efficiency through multiple reuse and smart network deployment topologies. The direct use of frequency domain organization simplifies designs using MIMO-AAS compared to CDMA/WCDMA methods, resulting in more effective systems.

[edit] Limitations

A commonly held misconception is that WiMAX will deliver 70 Mbit/s, over 30 miles (48 kilometers). Both of these qualities are true individually, given ideal circumstances, but they are not simultaneously true. WiMAX has some similarities to DSL in this respect, where one can either have high bandwidth or long reach, but not both simultaneously.

The nature of wireless communications dictates that the antenna design will have a substantial impact on what is achievable. Typically, Fixed WiMAX networks have a higher-gain directional antenna installed externally at the customer's premises which results in greatly increased range and throughput. Mobile WiMAX networks comprise mostly of indoor CPEs such as desktop modems, laptops with integrated Mobile WiMAX or other Mobile WiMAX devices. Mobile WiMAX devices typically have an antenna design which is of lower-gain by nature due to their inherent omni-directional (and portable) design. In practice this means that in a line-of-sight environment with a portable Mobile WiMAX CPE, symmetrical speeds of 10 Mbit/s at 10 km could be delivered, but in urban environments it is more likely that these devices will not have line-of-sight and therefore users may only receive 10 Mbit/s over 2 km. Higher-gain directional antennas can be used with a Mobile WiMAX network with range and throughput benefits but the obvious loss of practical mobility.

Like most wireless systems, available bandwidth is shared between users in a given radio sector, so performance could deteriorate in the case of many active users on a single sector, especially if proper capacity planning has not been undertaken. In practice, many users will have a range of 2-, 4-, 6-, 8-, 10- or 12 Mbit/s services and additional radio cards will be added to the base station to increase the capacity as required.

Because of this, various granular and distributed network architectures are being incorporated into WiMAX through independent development and within the 802.16j, mobile multi-hop relay (MMR) task group. This includes wireless mesh, grids, network remote station repeaters which can extend networks and connect to backhaul.

[edit] Silicon implementations

A critical requirement for the success of a new technology is the availability of low-cost chipsets and silicon implementations.

Intel is a leader in promoting WiMAX, and has developed its own chipset. However, it is notable that most of the major semiconductor companies have to date been more cautious of involvement and most of the solutions come from specialist smaller or start-up suppliers. For client-side these include Altair, Beceem, GCI, Runcom and a number of others. Both Sequans and Wavesat manufacture solutions for both clients and network while Picochip is focussed on WiMAX chipsets for basestations.