1. Introduction of IEEE 802.16

I remember that when I was a college student in Zhejiang University three years ago, the first time I got the words IEEE 802.16 from my supervisor in the laborotary, I felt that this technique will be tremendously promising and fast developed in the near future. Because at that time, I was working in the project which was related to IEEE 802.11 and the telecomunication receiver algorithm about MIMO-OFDM which was considered as 4G technology. Actually, after that, I would often concern about the progress and information of its standards. So here I would give the introduction of IEEE 802.16 standards as the beginning of the assignment.

Since July 1999, the IEEE 802.16 Working Group on Broadband Wireless Access Standards, which was established by IEEE Standards Board, aims to prepare formal specifications for the global deployment of broadband Wireless Metropolitan Area Networks. The Workgroup is a unit of the IEEE 802 LAN/MAN Standards Committee. A related future technology Mobile Broadband Wireless Access (MBWA) is under development in IEEE 802.20.

Although the 802.16 family of standards is officially called WirelessMAN, it has been dubbed “WiMAX” (from "Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access") by an industry group called the WiMAX Forum. The mission of the Forum is to promote and certify compatibility and interoperability of broadband wireless products.

IEEE 802.16 provides solutions that are more economical than wireline alternatives. The standards set the stage for a revolution in reliable, high-speed network access in the first mile (also known as the "last mile") by homes and enterprises. The Working Group has completed, and is currently enhancing, two IEEE Standards. The IEEE 802.16 WirelessMAN Standard ("Air Interface for Fixed Broadband Wireless Access Systems") addresses Wireless Metropolitan Area Networks. Following a two-year effort, the initial standard, covering systems between 10 and 66 GHz, was approved in December 2001 for publication. It delivered a standard for point to multipoint Broadband Wireless transmission in the 10-66 GHz band, with only a line-of-sight (LOS) capability. It uses a single carrier (SC) physical (PHY) standard.

802.16a was an amendment to 802.16 and delivered a point to multipoint capability in the 2-11 GHz band. For this to be of use, it also required a non-line-of-sight (NLOS) capability, and the PHY standard was therefore extended to include Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplex (OFDM) and Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA). 802.16a was ratified in January 2003 and was intended to provide "last mile" fixed broadband access. 802.16c, a further amendment to 802.16, delivered a system profile for the 10-66 GHz 802.16 standard. In September 2003, a revision project called 802.16d commenced aiming to align the standard with aspects of the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) HIPERMAN standard as well as lay down conformance and test specifications. This project concluded in 2004 with the release of 802.16-2004 which superseded the earlier 802.16 documents, including the a/b/c amendments. An amendment to 802.16-2004, IEEE 802.16e-2005 (formerly known as IEEE 802.16e), addressing mobility, was concluded in 2005. This implemented a number of enhancements to 802.16-2004, including better support for Quality of Service and the use of Scalable OFDMA, and is sometimes called “Mobile WiMAX”, after the WIMAX forum for interoperability.

In this blog, I would like to introduce the information of IEEE 802.16 standards, and the specification of WiMAX which is popular nowadays all around the world; sumarize the history and progress of amendaments of the standards; analysize the situation in some areas such as China, etc.; and explore the research and development in the future.

Reference
[1] http://www.ieee802.org/16/
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.16