WiMAX IEEE 802.

16 standards

IEEE 802.16 Standards and

Amendments

Although the original 802.16 standard along with amendments a, b, and c are now
withdrawn, there are still many documents that are being used for defining and evolving
the 802.16 standard. A summary of the major documents, including those that have been
withdrawn is given below:

Standard /
Comments
amendment
• Now withdrawn.
• This is the basic 802.16 standard that was released in
802.16 2001.
• It provided for basic high data links at frequencies
between 11 and 60 GHz.

• Now withdrawn.
802.16a • This amendment addressed certain spectrum issues
and enabled the standard to be used at frequencies
below the 11 GHz minimum of the original standard.

• Now withdrawn.
802.16b • It increased the spectrum that was specified to
include frequencies between 5 and 6 GHz while also
providing for Quality of Service aspects.
• Now withdrawn.
• This amendment to 802.16 provided a system profile
for operating between 10 and 66 GHz and provided
802.16c
more details for operations within this range.
• The aim was to enable greater levels of
interoperability.
802.16d • This amendment was also known as 802.16-2004 in
(802.16-2004) view of the fact that it was released in 2004.
• It was a major revision of the 802.16 standard and
upon its release, all previous documents were
withdrawn.
• The standard / amendment provided a number of
fixes and improvements to 802.16a including the use
of 256 carrier OFDM.

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Standard /
Comments
amendment
• Profiles for compliance testing are also provided,
and the standard was aligned with the ETSI
HiperMAN standard to allow for global deployment.
• The standard only addressed fixed operation.
• This standard, also known as 802.16-2005 in view of
its release date, provided for nomadic and mobile
802.16e use.
(802.16-2005) • With lower data rates of 15 Mbps against to 70
Mbps of 802.16d, it enabled full nomadic and
mobile use including handover.
802.16f • Management information base
802.16g •Management plane procedures and services
•Improved coexistence mechanisms for license-
802.16h
exempt operation (Current)
802.16j • Multi-hop relay specification (Current)
802.16k • 802.16 bridging (Current)
• Advanced air interface.
• This amendment is looking toth e future and it is
anticipated it will provide data rates of 100 Mbps for
mobile applications and 1 Gbps for fixed
802.16m applications.
• It will allow cellular, macro and micro cell
coverage, with currently there are no restrictions on
the RF bandwidth although it is expected to be 20
MHz or more. (In progress)
802.16n • Higher Reliability Networks (In progress)
Summary of the IEEE 802.16 standards

IEEE 802.16d

• Fixed WiMAX is the 802.16d standard or as it is sometimes called 802.16-2004.

• Its product profile utilizes the OFDM 256-FFT (Fast Fourier Transform) system
profile, which is just different enough from its sister standard of Mobile WiMAX
(802.16e) that the two are incompatible.
• Interestingly, both standards support both protocols within the technology
protocol as well as the one chosen for Mobile WiMAX and the Korean
WiBro/Mobile WiMAX standard.

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• The Fixed WiMAX 802.16-2004 standard supports both time division duplex
(TDD) and frequency division duplex (FDD) services---the latter of which is far
more popular with mobile wireless providers than the newer TDD approach.
• At this point, Fixed WiMAX 802.16d systems are widely deployed in both
Europe and Asia, but it is clear that for many vendors the adoption of the Mobile
WiMAX 802.16e is the option of choice.

IEEE 802.16e

• The true Mobile WiMAX standard of 802.16e is divergent from Fixed WiMAX.
• It attracted a significant number of Forum members towards an opportunity to
substantively challenge existing 3G technology purveyors. While clearly based
on the same OFDM base technology adopted in 802.16-2004, the 802.16e version
is designed to deliver service across many more sub-channels than the OFDM
256-FFT.
• It is important to note that both standards support single carrier, OFDM 256-FFT
and at least OFDMA 1K-FFT.
• The 802.16e standard adds OFDMA 2K-FFT, 512-FFT and 128-FFT capability.
• Sub-channelization facilitates access at varying distance by providing operators
the capability to dynamically reduce the number of channels while increasing the
gain of signal to each channel in order to reach customers farther away. The
reverse is also possible.
• For example, when a user gets closer to a cell site, the number of channels will
increase and the modulation can also change to increase bandwidth. At longer
ranges, modulations like QPSK (which offer robust links but lower bandwidth)
can give way at shorter ranges to 64 QAM (which are more sensitive links, but
offer much higher bandwidth) for example.
• Each subscriber is linked to a number of subchannels that obviate multi-path
interference.
• The 802.16e version of WiMAX also incorporates support for multiple-input-
multiple-output (MIMO) antenna technology as well as Beamforming and

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Advanced Antenna Systems (AAS), which are all "smart" antenna technologies
that significantly improve gain of WiMAX systems as well as throughput.
• The 802.16e standard is being utilized primarily in licensed spectrum for pure
mobile applications. Many firms have elected to develop the 802.16e standard
exclusively for both fixed and mobile versions.
• The 802.16e version of WiMAX is the closest comparable technology to the
emerging LTE mobile wireless standard. Or rather, it is more proper to say that
LTE is the most comparable to Mobile WiMAX in terms of capabilities as well as
technology. The two competing technologies are really very much alike
technically.

IEEE 802.16f

• The 802.16f amendment provides enhancements to IEEE 802.16-2004, defining a

Management Information Base (MIB) for the MAC and PHY and the associated
management procedures.
• IEEE 802.16f describes the use of a Simple Network Management Protocol
(SNMP), an Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) protocol as a network
management reference model.
• A management information base (MIB) is a virtual database used for managing
the entities in a communications network. Most often associated with the Simple
Network Management Protocol (SNMP), the term is also used more generically in
contexts such as in OSI/ISO Network management model. While intended to refer
to the complete collection of management information available on an entity, it is
often used to refer to a particular subset, more correctly referred to as MIB-
module

IEEE 802.16g

• IEEE 802.16g standard produces Management plane procedures and services.

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• The purpose of this standard is to provide conformant 802.16 equipment with

procedures and services to enable interoperable and efficient management of
network resources, mobility, and spectrum, and to standardize management plane
behavior in 802.16 fixed and mobile devices.

IEEE 802.16h

• IEEE 802.16h defines a set of cognitive radio capabilities for Wimax networks.
• Cognitive radio (CR) is a form of wireless communication in which a transceiver
can intelligently detect which communication channels are in use and which are
not, and instantly move into vacant channels while avoiding occupied ones. This
optimizes the use of available radio-frequency (RF) spectrum while minimizing
interference to other users.
• The proposed global framework is divided in two separated profiles.
• The first one provides uncoordinated coexistence mechanisms (WirelessMAN-
UCP), i.e., without requiring much interaction among the different systems and
hence adequate for heterogeneous systems.
• The second provides coordinated coexistence mechanisms (WirelessMAN-CX),
which addresses the required coordination of neighboring systems in order to
reduce the interference generated to each other.

IEEE 802.16j

• This standard network also called as Multihop relay (MR) network.

• In MR networks, the BS may be replaced by a multihop relay BS (MR-BS) and
one or more relay stations (RS).
• Traffic and signaling between the SS and MR-BS are relayed by the RS thereby
extending the coverage and performance of the system in areas where RSs are
deployed. Each RS is under the supervision of an MR-BS.
• In a more than two hop system, traffic and signaling between an access RS and
MR-BS may also be relayed through intermediate RSs.

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• The RS may be fixed in location (i.e., attached to a building) or, in the case of an
access RS, it may be mobile (i.e., traveling with a transportation vehicle). The SS
may also communicate directly with the MR-BS.

IEEE 802.16k

• IEEE 802.16k provides support for Bridging in 802 Networks.

• Bridged networks are made of things that look like LANs connected together by
bridges.
• It allows to connect one 802 network with another network.
• For example IEEE 802.16 standard network can be bridged with IEEE 802.11
standard network.