Overview of WiMAX
fter years of development and uncertainty, a standards-based interoperable solution is emerging for wireless broadband. A broad industry consortium, the Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) Forum has begun certifying broadband wireless products for interoperability and compliance with a standard. WiMAX is based on wireless metropolitan area networking (WMAN) standards developed by the IEEE 802.16 group and adopted by both IEEE and the ETSI HIPERMAN group.
In this chapter, we present a concise technical overview of the emerging WiMAX solution for broadband wireless. The purpose here is to provide an executive summary before offering a more detailed exposition of WiMAX in later chapters. We begin the chapter by summarizing the activities of the IEEE 802.16 group and its relation to WiMAX. Next, we discuss the salient features of WiMAX and briefly describe the physicaland MAC-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 ends with a brief discussion of expected WiMAX performance.
