2.1. Progress and amendments of IEEE 802.16 standards

In this section, the history progress of IEEE 802.16 standards by now will be indicated and some details information of the amendments will be given, including superceded standards, terminated projects, active standards, darfts under development and amendments in pre-draft stage. These materials will illustrate the development of 802.16 standards more legible and intuitionistic. Also we may have a global view of the standards.

Superceded Standards

IEEE 802.16–2001
802.16 standard was approved in December 2001. 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. It was latterly released at April 2002.

IEEE 802.16a–2003
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.

IEEE 802.16c–2002
802.16c which was latterly released at 15 January 2003, was an amendment to 802.16, delivered a system profile for the 10-66 GHz 802.16 standard


Terminated Projects

IEEE P802.16d
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 This project concluded in 2004 with the release of 802.16-2004 which superseded the earlier 802.16 documents, including the a/b/c amendments.

IEEE P802.16-2004/Cor2
This project was latterly released at 22 May 2007.


Active Standards

IEEE 802.16–2004
Revision of IEEE 802.16 including IEEE 802.16-2001, IEEE 802.16c-2002, and IEEE 802.16a-2003) developed by Task Group d under the temporary draft designation "P802.16-REVd".

IEEE 802.16e–2005
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. It’s also called Mobile 802.16.

IEEE 802.16f–2005
Management Information Base, an amendment to IEEE 802.16, latterly released at 1 December 2005.

IEEE 802.16g–2007
Management Plane Procedures and Services, an amendment to IEEE 802.16, latterly released at 10 April 2007.

IEEE 802.16–2004/Cor1-2005
Corrigendum to IEEE 802.16, published along with 802.16e – 2005, latterly released at 28 February 2006.

IEEE 802.16.2–2004
Revision of 802.16.2-2001, latterly released at 17 March 2004.

IEEE 802.16/Conformance01-2003, IEEE 802.16/Conformance02-2003, IEEE 802.16/Conformance03-2004 and IEEE 802.16/Conformance04-2006, were latterly released at 18 August 2003, 25 February 2004, 25 June 2004, and 15 January 2007 respectively.

IEEE 802.16k–2007
Bridging of 802.16, an amendment to 802.1D (as previously amended by 802.17a), developed by Network Management Task Group, latterly released at 14 August 2007.


Drafts Under Development

IEEE 802.16h
Improved Coexistence Mechanisms for License-Exempt Operation, project to amend IEEE 802.16, in development by License-Exempt Task Group, latterly released at 18 May 2008.

IEEE 802.16i
Mobile Management Information Base, project to amend IEEE 802.16, in development by Network Management Task Group, latterly released at 2 October 2007.

IEEE 802.16j
Multihop Relay Specification, project to amend IEEE 802.16, in development by Relay Task Group, latterly released at 30 May 2008.

IEEE 802.16Rev2
Consolidate 802.16-2004, 802.16e, 802.16f, 802.16g and possibly 802.16i into a new document. This work will result in the second revision of IEEE 802.16, following 802.16-2001 and 802.16-2004. Consolidate 802.16-2004, 802.16e-2005, 802.16-2004/Cor1-2005, 802.16f-2005 and possibly 802.16g and 802.16i, incorporating the P802.16-2004/Cor2 draft.


Amendments in Pre-Draft Stage

IEEE 802.16m
802.16 Task Group m (TGm) is chartered to develop an amendment to IEEE standard 802.16 under PAR P802.16m and the relevant Five Criteria Statement statement. The PAR addresses “Air Interface for Fixed and Mobile broadband Wireless Access Systems - Advanced Air Interface” and was approved by the IEEE-SA standards Board on 6 December 2006. Data rates of 100 Mbit/s for mobile applications and 1 Gbit/s for fixed applications, cellular, macro and micro cell coverage, with currently no restrictions on the RF bandwidth (which is expected to be 20 MHz or higher). The proposed work plan would allow completion of the standard by December 2009 for approval by March 2010.

Reference:
[1] http://www.ieee802.org/16/published.html
[2] Carl Eklund, Roger B. Marks, Subbu Ponnuswamy, Kenneth L. Stanwood, Nico J.M. Van Waes, "WirelessMAN: Inside the IEEE 802.16 Standard for Wireless Metropolitan Area Networks", IEEE Press, 2006.