The Future of WiMax

The WiMAX technology has gain a lot of attention of recent from all stakeholders in the wireless communication industry, industry observers struggle to separate hype from reality. Explaining the market is a feat for anyone considering complexities such as fixed versus mobile WiMAX, product availability and timing, spectrum challenges, and the largely global nature of WiMAX.

WiMAX has been positioned not only as a technology, but also an organization comprising more than 170 vendors, service providers, system integrators and chip manufacturers. The WiMAX Forum has aligned an excellent breed of large and small companies. This will be a critical factor in the technology's enduring success.

The real excitement around WiMAX is not centered on the fixed version of the technology. Large-scale equipment and silicon makers are banking on mobile WiMAX to make their money.

There are a number of hurdles that must be overcome for mobile WiMAX to take off, including global spectrum availability and harmony, the development and adoption of mobile broadband applications, and a definition of the major differentiators of WiMAX products as compared to existing broadband and mobile technologies.

The broadband and mobile markets are moving targets, each shifting from the support of basic service sets to enhanced multimedia applications. Timing, pricing, and scale will be critical to WiMAX success, and vendors must prove that WiMAX can deliver much more than basic broadband.

Despite these obstacles, there are some interesting dynamics that could play out to make service providers invest in mobile WiMAX. As the war heats up between Telco’s and cable companies, triple and quadruple play service bundles are becoming critical. Many of these companies are now trying to figure out whether wireless data services will also become table stakes.


In regions such as Europe, Telco’s seem like a more likely investor in WiMAX. Providers such as British Telecom and France Telecom already participate in the WiMAX Forum. And Asia will be largely stemmed by the South Korean Wi-Bro initiative, which is now following the WiMAX technology trajectory.

One of the biggest market for WiMAX is in China, where IEEE and the Chinese government are already in discussion to make WiMAX the national standard for fixed broadband wireless access at 3.5 GHz. Intel has stated they will begin to make their Centrino laptop processors complete with WiMAX ability within the next two to three years. With a target date of 2008 for having all laptops equipped with this feature, the intel company has also put in place a plan to popularize wimax by putting Wi-Fi and WiMax on the same radio chip, code-named Ofer, in three years. Putting the two technologies on the same chip will allow consumers to switch between local hot spots and regional network, Making WiMax available in portable devices is the next goal for companies such as Intel, Motorola, Alvarion and several equipment manufacturers in the Wimax forum The technology already is finding greater acceptance in developing countries in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa that have no or spotty fixed-line broadband networks.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has outlined some of the factors that could define the success or otherwise of WiMax wireless networking, the OECD report revealed that WiMax depends critically on spectrum allocation, a process which is still incomplete worldwide. This fact makes the OECD conclude that despite all the excitement over WiMax, the ultimate role of WiMax in the wireless market is debatable. The report also cited concerns about competition from existing network operators, who it said are more likely to upgrade their 3G investments with High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) than roll out an entirely new network.

Other issues causing concern include the uncertainty about standards for mobile WiMax, the regulatory environment for connecting networks to the phone system, and the possibilities that operators may block ports rather than lose mobile phone revenue to voice over IP. If that doesn't happen, the report said, then WiMax may be useful if built into mobile phones.

Although there are misperceptions and legitimate impediments surrounding it, WiMAX will play a critical role in making broadband a more globally ubiquitous service. Wireless/wireline convergence will become a reality, and multiple broadband and mobile technologies, including WiMAX, will be needed for service providers to address different segments of the market.

WiMAX vs 3G

The low cost of the WiMAX spectrum compared to 3G is a clear driver for service providers to enter the field of wireless services with WiMAX. This difference in cost/Hz is particularly significant in Europe, where the average 3Gspectrum cost/Hz is 1000 times higher than the average BWA/WiMAX spectrum cost/Hz. The proportion is smaller in other regions, but remains in favor of WiMAX.

Moreover the aggregate 3G spectrum is in lower frequency bands than the aggregate WIMAX spectrum. This shifts the cost/Hz on a deployed equipment basis, due to the requirement for at least twice the equipment for each doubling of the frequency. However, even with that adjustment it is clear that the WIMAX spectrum is more economical, particularly when it is mapped to trends of devices to mitigate spectrum bands and modulation schemes.

Also the much lower cost of WIMAX licenses resulted in a high number of licensees, with a total of 721 and 106 license holders for WiMAX and 3G, respectively. However, the average amount of spectrum owned by a carrier is similar for the two technologies. North America is by far the leading region in number of WiMAX awarded licensees, with a total of 394 WiMAX license holders, against 186 in Europe, 97 in the Asian Pacific (APAC) region and in the Central America / Latin America (CALA) region.

In contrast to 3G licenses, the WiMAX licenses awarded around the world are essentially regional. North America is a perfect example, where 100% of its WiMAX licenses are regional, against 78% in Europe and 71% in the CALA region. This crowded environment will result in a highly fragmented, unpredictable and more competitive market, open to smaller and cost-aggressive players. It is important to note that not all licensees are active at the moment. In fact, more than half of the license holders in the WiMAX spectrum are still in the evaluation or trial stage. On the other hand, the low-cost spectrum has also attracted players that have fewer resources than the large mobile operators. Wimax spectrum was initially allocated for fixed-only applications and remains so in many countries. While 3G, with the emergence of enhanced 3G technologies like HSDPA/HSUPA, Scalable Bandwidth EV-DO, 3.9G and Super 3G, is expected to reinforce its head start over Mobile WiMAX in terms of performance, it appears clear that 3G carriers will have to compete with new players once WiMAX mobile technology is embedded in cell phones and reaches attractive price points and significant volume sometime in 2008.

Most regulators have not kept pace with the progress of technology that makes fixed-mobile convergence a reality. 77% of regulators still limit 3.5 GHz usage to fixed-only applications. More importantly, the 2.5-2.9 GHz band remains locked to WiMAX in most European countries, but the pressure on regulators to include BWA/WiMAX in the IMT 2000 definition will increase over time, once 802.16e systems become commercially available. Sweden has already opened a public consultation to allow the 2570-2620MHz band to be technology agnostic.
Whether it is fixed applications with CDMA technology or mobile applications with
BWA/WiMAX, the two fields are converging and will be competing for a share of the one-billion-subscriber market.


The major difference between WiMAX (and any new competition for wide area wireless) and established cellular is the allocation of harmonious spectrum.
In order to build mass market acceptance and deliver the full extent of ease of use, entertainment value and productivity enhancements, wireless service must be widely available across geographies and regulatory jurisdictions.

Some of the major trends influencing the ability of WIMAX to become pervasive includes:

1. Changes in regulations that make spectrum available and harmonize use of spectrum across international boundaries.
2. Multi-mode and multi-band enabling semiconductor ICs, devices and system designs that mitigate differences among spectrum regulations. As further progress is made in combining multiple radios that work in multiple frequency spectrums, the user experience will become similar to having an internationally harmonious spectrum.
3. All underlying wireless transport systems are converging upon communications protocols IP/SIP and network architectures such as IMS.
4. Communications industry revenues are increasingly driven by content and services rather than specific type of wireless network that delivers restricted/tailored voice and messaging applications. This trend will accelerate as the shift to IP/SIP and IMS takes place.
5. Markets served and revenue streams are becoming more diverse and customer-segment-specific. This diversity or ”one size does not fit all” marketplace means that service providers must have a full arsenal of solutions, from high bandwidth dedicated ”fixed” solutions to generic cellular phone services, in order to make ”highest revenue and profit density” use of spectrum.

Other factors, including the trend towards community wireless, the adoption of standards and concentration of IP into the hands of major semiconductor companies, also tend to press for liberalization, harmonization and availability of spectrum. Long term trends towards smart/cognitive radios are preceded by the current trend towards multi-mode, multi-band radios.

The case for Mobile Wi-Max

The Mobile WiMAX systems profiles was approved in February 2006.Mobile WiMAX is based on the 802.16e-2005, this enables WiMAX systems to address portable and mobile applications in addition to fixed and nomadic applications. Mobile WiMAX introduces OFDMA and supports several key features necessary for delivering mobile broadband services at vehicular speeds greater than 120 km/hr1 with QoS comparable to broadband wireline access alternatives. These features and attributes include:

Tolerance to Multipath and Self-Interference with subchannel orthogonality in both the Downlink (DL) and the Uplink (UL).

Scalable Channel Bandwidths from 1.25 to 20 MHz

Time Division Duplex2 (TDD) is defined for the initial mobile WiMAX profiles for its added efficiency in support of asymmetric traffic and channel reciprocity for easy support of advanced antenna systems.

Hybrid-Automatic Repeat Request (H-ARQ) provides added robustness with rapidly changing path conditions in high mobility situations.

Frequency Selective Scheduling and subchannelization with multiple permutation options, gives mobile WiMAX the ability to optimize connection quality based on relative signal strengths to specific users.

Power Conservation Management ensures power-efficient operation of battery operated mobile handheld and portable devices in Sleep and Idle modes.

Network-Optimized Hard Handoff (HHO) is supported to minimize overhead and achieve a handoff delay of less than 50 milliseconds.

Multicast and Broadcast Service (MBS) combines the features of DVB-H, MediaFLO and 3GPP E-UTRA for:
a) High data rate and coverage using a Single Frequency Network
b) Flexible radio resource allocation
c) Low mobile device power consumption
d) Low channel switching time

Smart Antenna support aided by subchannelization and channel reciprocity enables a wide range of advanced antenna systems including beamforming, space-time coding and spatial multiplexing.

Fractional Frequency Reuse controls co-channel interference to support universal frequency reuse with minimal degradation in spectral efficiency.

5 millisecond Frame Size provides optimal tradeoff between overhead and latency.


The first commercial portable/mobile application for WiMAX certified products is expected to take place in Korea with the launch of WiBro services . Products for WiBro services operate in the licensed 2.3 GHz frequency band with an 8.75 MHz channel bandwidth. This initial product launch will use SISO antenna configurations and support mobile speeds >60 km/hr. Additional deployments of Mobile WiMAX products are expected in the early 2007 time frame.

Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) policy of WiMax forum

The relationship between standards and IPRs has been more tenses in this decade than ever, IPR has evolved from mere protection to strategically important assets, to avoid standard hijacking such as witnessed with the GSM standard, many standardization body adopts one form of IPR policy or other to ameliorate the problems that arises from the IPRs and standards conflicts. The Wimax forum Intellectual property Rights policy is along the listed guidelines:


PUBLIC DISCLOSURE GUIDELINES:

This specifies that members shall not, without the prior authorization of the WiMAX Forum, publicly disclose other information or materials of the WiMAX Forum except for information and materials that are already generally known or available to the public or are clearly intended for public release, such as approved marketing and promotional materials.

PATENT DISCLOSURE STANDARDS:

All individuals participating in any way in a particular Working Group are strongly encouraged on an ongoing basis to disclose patents or patent applications held by themselves or their represented Members where such patents or patent applications include claims that may be necessary to implement a Draft Specification or a Specification (as such terms are defined under this Policy) that is generated, developed, reviewed or revised by such Working Group. More specifically, individual representatives of members are encouraged to disclose patents containing “Necessary Claims,” where “Necessary Claims” refers to those claims of any and/or all patents and patent applications, throughout the world where a Member or its Affiliates has the right to grant licenses under such claims of the nature agreed to be granted herein without such grant resulting in payment of royalties or other consideration to third parties; and such claims would necessarily be infringed by fully compliant implementation of such Specification or Draft Specification, as applicable. Moreover members and participants are encouraged to provide the most complete information possible concerning the patents and/or patent applications, and to indicate briefly how they may apply to the relevant Specification or Draft Specification When disclosing patents and/or patent applications pursuant to this Policy

LICENSING OF MEMBER INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS:

This policy specifies that, each Member, in the WiMAX Forum, will grant to other Members, their Affiliates and any implementers of the Specification, a nonexclusive, nontransferable worldwide license under its Necessary Claims to allow such Members, their Affiliates and implementers to make, have made, use, import, offer to sell, and sell and otherwise distribute implementations compliant with all relevant required portions of such Specification under reasonable and nondiscriminatory terms and that each Member a will not transfer, and has not transferred, patents having Necessary Claims for the purpose of circumventing this policy.

SPECIFICATION NOTICE, REVIEW AND MEMBER WITHDRAWAL:

This section provides guidelines for member’s full or partial withdrawal from the forum and how reviews and specification report are disseminated

Wi-Max Certification releases

The certification scope of Wi-Max expands through time with the addition of new test cases; however the list of requirements as defined in the system profiles does not change to ensure backward compatibility and technology stability.

The new test cases are introduced either to include new features in the certification process or to expand coverage of existing ones, this is an incremental process that retains all previously used test cases. A release framework is used to add new test cases. Several releases are defined for each system profile, each of them including additional tests and, if relevant, new certification profiles to be tested. The first release covers all the basic mandatory features required for network operation. Subsequent releases may include additional tests for mandatory features that all WiMAX products are required to support and tests for optional features that vendors may choose whether to support or not.
Three releases are planned for fixed WiMAX, Release 1, 2 and 3. As of May 2006, equipment is being certified under Release 1. Release 2 is slated to be introduced in the third quarter of 2006. Release 1 for fixed WiMAX only covers mandatory features and includes testing for the air interface, network entry, dynamic services and bandwidth allocation. Release 2 will introduce three optional modules:

A) Quality of Service (QoS). QoS enhances WiMAX support for real-time applications that require low latency, such as Voice over IP (VoIP), video and audio streaming, video-conferencing and gaming. This makes possible prioritization of real-time applications traffic over best-effort traffic.
B) Advanced security with Advanced Encryption Standard (AES). All fixed WiMAX equipment is required to support Data Encryption Standard (DES) for security. More advanced security functionality is offered by AES, which is an encryption standard adopted by the US government.
C) Automatic Repeat Request (ARQ). ARQ is an error correction mechanism that leads to a better link budget and thus improved performance.

No new module has been announced yet for Release 3.

Further optional features, such as sub-channelization in the uplink, Convolutional Turbo Coding (CTC) and Space Time Coding (STC) can be tested for any certification profile when at least three vendors submit products that support them. Backward compatibility ensures that equipment certified under a certification profile will always interoperate with others certified in the same or previous release.
Moreover new releases enable operators to introduce new features in their deployments and to know which equipment supports those features. In a fixed WiMAX network with equipment certified in different releases, interoperability will be limited to the features tested in the earliest releases.

Certification Approach

Certification program ensure that equipment interoperates without going through extensive and costly independent testing, but different interpretations of the standards or varied implementations of the specifications may lead to a lack of interoperability when equipment vendors strive to develop products that comply with the standard, however to militate against such unforeseen incompatibility issues, the WiMAX certification program is designed to address these issues by fostering cooperation among vendors through plugfests, where they can informally verify interoperability, and through the official testing process. A robust set of test cases has been developed to ensure that the certification program meets the stringent requirements of network operators. The overall process is inevitably complex and requires substantial effort and a collaborative approach from the vendors involved, but the rewards are substantial.

Equipment is subjected to four main stages of test before they can be WiMax certified:

1) Equipment submission: At this preliminary stage, a vendor selects a certification profile and optional modules, and participates in plugfest and self-testing.
2) Conformance test: At the certification lab the submitted equipment is tested for protocol compliance (MAC layer) and radio compliance (PHY layer)
3) Interoperability test: Equipment that passed the second test is subjected to the interoperability test with products from other vendors in same profile.
4) Certification issuance: This is the last stage of the certification process, where the wimax forum announces certification, issue certificate and test report to vendor.


The wimax forum certification process is centered on conformance and interoperability tests, vendors need to pass all the tests to gain certification, if the equipment fails any test, the certification will have to be started from the first test again.
It should be noted that vendors claiming their equipment is “WiMAX-like,” WiMAX-compliant,” etc., are not WiMAX Forum Certified, which means that their equipment is not independently certified to be interoperable with other vendors’ equipment. Only WiMAX Forum Certified equipment is proven interoperable with other vendors’ equipment that is also WiMAX Forum Certified.

Wimax Certification Process

The certification program kicked of in mid-2005 at an independent lab, Cetecom in Spain and of recent the Telecommunications Technology Association (TTA) in Korea has been added as the second certification lab. The first certified products were announced in January 2006. As of May 2006, fourteen products have been certified and more are expected to be announced soon. WiMAX Forum Certified products have been tested to show that they comply with the standards and that they interoperate with certified products from other vendors, hence Network operators can safely buy certified equipment without conducting further tests, with assurance that future product versions will be backward compatible with the equipment they have currently deployed.

The WiMAX Forum Certified program defines how standards will be implemented in products, i.e. certification profiles are defined by spectrum band, channelization and duplexing. and are required for interoperability, it Reduces overall costs by promoting economies of scale, Increases competition in the market. i.e. an open-standards approach coupled with interoperability testing greatly encourages the entry into the market of low-cost and high-volume component and equipment vendors, which will lead to further price reductions.

The certification process of the WiMax technology brings a lot of benefits to several stakeholders in the BWA sector, to the service provider:

• Multiple vendor: The certification program Service providers can choose equipment from multiple vendors and not depending on a single vendor, thus gaining additional flexibility in planning or extending their deployments. . Adoption of certified products will enable operators to transition smoothly to a different vendor, without having to replace the equipment already deployed.

• Low Product price: Increased market competition and economies of scale will bring down equipment price.

• Backward compatibility. The assurance that new products will work with existing ones facilitates network planning and reduces the financial risk for operators.

Component and equipment vendors also benefits as well by:

• Gaining access to a wider market: Lower prices, increased market competition and more flexibility for operators will greatly increase the demand for WiMAX equipment and create a larger opportunity for vendors.

• Achieving lower production costs: lower production costs can be achieved due to economies of scale and higher sales volumes.

•Addressing requirements from network operators. Operators often demand vendor interoperability as a condition for deploying a technology. Certification makes it possible to meet this requirement without additional, expensive ad-hoc tests.
• Early removal of interoperability barrier: Certification allows vendors to address any interoperability issues before bringing a product to the market, at a stage where they are easier and less expensive to resolve.

Standardization Process of WiMax

A consortium with the name WiMax Forum is at the forefront of standardizing the wimax technology. The wimax forum is an industry-led, non-profit corporation formed to promote and certify compatibility and interoperability of broadband wireless products with support for the industry-wide acceptance of the IEEE 802.16 and ETSI HiperMAN wireless MAN standards.

The WiMax Forum

The Forum was established in 2003 and has two levels of membership, principal and regular, principal members consist of System manufacturers, Companies that make broadband wireless systems, PHY semiconductors, MAC semiconductors or PHY/MAC semiconductors, the regular members consists of Service providers, Antenna vendors RF semiconductor vendors and others. Approximately 350+ companies are members of the forum including Intel corporations, AT&T and several major players in the wireless industry.

The wimax forum is positioning itself to deliver value to all the stakeholders in the industry, faster and cheaper access that is more widely available for end-users, fewer product variations and higher volumes for component vendor and equipment interoperability across vendors for network operators.The wimax forum has put in place mechanism in line with the basic principles of standardisation, which are voluntary,open,consensus,public,general purpose for the public and compatibility(between generations).

Introducing WiMax

"WiMAX" is an acronym that stands for Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access, the name actually stems from the WiMax forum, an organization of equipment and component suppliers dedicated to promoting the adoption of IEEE 802.16 and ETSI HiperMAN standards compliant equipment. In essence Wimax is a technology standard that results from coalesces of IEEE 802.16 and ETSI HiperMAN standards.
The advent of WiMAX introduces a novel approach to wireless broadband. The technology is based on the Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM,) based technology with an all-IP core network that delivers superior performance through high throughput, low latency, advanced security and QoS functionality (OFDM is a digital encoding and modulation technology that achieves high data rate and efficiency by using multiple overlapping carrier signals with the ability to deliver higher bandwidth efficiency and therefore higher data throughput even in the face of challenging deployment scenario such as NLOS links suffering from significant degradation due to multipath conditions).


IEEE 802.16 Overview

A point-to-multipoint (PMP) broadband wireless access standard for systems in the frequency ranges 10-66 GHz and sub 11 GHz has been developed by the IEEE 802.16 Working Group. The standard covers both the Media Access Control (MAC) and the physical (PHY) layers.
A number of PHY considerations were taken into account for the target environment. At higher frequencies, line of sight is very essential to reduce the effect of multipath, allowing for wide channels, typically greater than 10 MHz in bandwidth. This gives IEEE 802.16 the ability to provide very high capacity links on both the uplink and the downlink. For sub 11 GHz non line of sight capability is a requirement. The original IEEE 802.16 MAC was enhanced to accommodate different PHYs and services, which address the needs of different environments. The standard is designed to accommodate either Time Division Duplexing (TDD) or Frequency Division Duplexing (FDD) deployments, allowing for both full and half-duplex terminals in the FDD case.

The MAC was designed specifically for the PMP wireless access environment. It supports higher layer or transport protocols such as ATM, Ethernet or Internet Protocol (IP), and is designed to easily accommodate future protocols that have not yet been developed. The MAC is designed for very high bit rates (up to 268 mbps each way) of the truly broadband physical layer, while delivering ATM compatible Quality of Service (QoS); UGS, rtPS, nrtPS, and Best Effort.

The frame structure allows terminals to be dynamically assigned uplink and downlink burst profiles according to their link conditions. This allows a trade-off between capacity and robustness in real-time, and provides roughly a two times increase in capacity on average when compared to non-adaptive systems, while maintaining appropriate link availability.

The 802.16 MAC uses a variable length Protocol Data Unit (PDU) along with a number of other concepts that greatly increase the efficiency of the standard. Multiple MAC PDUs may be concatenated into a single burst to save PHY overhead. Additionally, multiple Service Data Units (SDU) for the same service may be concatenated into a single MAC PDU, saving on MAC header overhead. Fragmentation allows very large SDUs to be sent across frame boundaries to guarantee the QoS of competing services. And, payload header suppression can be used to reduce the overhead caused by the redundant portions of SDU headers.

The MAC uses a self-correcting bandwidth request/grant scheme that eliminates the overhead and delay of acknowledgements, while simultaneously allowing better QoS handling than traditional acknowledged schemes. Terminals have a variety of options available to them for requesting bandwidth depending upon the QoS and traffic parameters of their services. They can be polled individually or in groups. They can steal bandwidth already allocated to make requests for more. They can signal the need to be polled, and they can piggyback requests for bandwidth.

802.16

The first version of the WiMax standard addressed spectrum ranges above 10 GHz (specifically 10 GHz to 66 GHz). Since line-of-sight (LOS) is a primary issue in this range, multipath was addressed in this first version with orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) techniques. Thus it supports wide channels, defined as being greater than 10 MHz in size. This first standard basically addressed licensed-only service delivery (although there is license-free spectrum in this range).

802.16a

The 802.16a update added support for spectrum ranges of 2 GHz to 11 GHz. It addressed both licensed and unlicensed ranges. It also incorporated non-line-of-sight (NLOS) capability. This version enhanced the medium access control (MAC) layer capabilities. It also improved quality of service (QOS) features. The European HiperMAN standard was supported and a total of three supported physical layers (PHY) were defined. Support for both time division duplexing (TDD) and frequency division duplexing (FDD) was incorporated -- providing for both half duplex and full duplex data transmission in cases where FDD is used. Transmission protocols such as Ethernet, ATM or IP are supported.

802.16c

This standard update dealt mostly with updates in the 10 GHz to 66 GHz range. However, it also addressed issues such as performance evaluation, testing and detailed system profiling. This last was a crucial element of the WiMax toolkit. Because there are great deals of options available with 802.16 in general, the system profile methodology evolved to define what would be mandatory features and what would be optional features. The intent was to guide vendors on mandatory elements that must be met to ensure interoperability. Optional elements such as different levels of security protocols incorporated allow vendors to differentiate their products by price, functionality and market niche.

802.16-2004(d)

All of the Fixed WiMax standards mentioned above have been rolled into 802.16-2004: it incorporates the original 802.16, 802.16a and 802.16c updates. This final standard supports numerous mandatory and optional elements. Vendors are already shipping their 802.16-2004 products to the Cetecom labs in Spain for interoperability testing.

The technology supports both TDD and FDD. Its theoretical effective data rate is around 70 Mbps, although real world performance will probably top out around 40 Mbps. It should be noted that while the technology supports at least three PHY layer Modulation schemes, the system profile chosen is OFDM 256-FFT. This is different from the OFDMA flexible FFT system used in 802.16e. Both standards, however, support the former PHY. This distinction is really a market choice. The Forum could have chosen to use OFDM 256-FFT instead of OFDMA. Market forces and in particular the WiBro standard may have precluded that.

Just some of the enhancements in this version are support for concatenation of both protocol data units (PDU) and service data units (SDU) which reduces the MAC overhead. The technology improves quality-of-service (QOS), particularly with very large SDUs. One clear improvement is support for multiple polling methodologies. The MAC facilitates polling individually or in groups. It can access allocated bandwidth to make requests, or signal that it needs polling. It can even piggyback polling requests over other traffic -- the upshot being that constant cross-talk is obviated with this system, reducing packet collisions and system overhead.

802.16e

A standard still in flux, IEEE 802.16e conserves the technical updates of Fixed WiMax while adding robust support for mobile broadband. While not completely settled, the technology will likely be based upon the OFDMA technology developed by Runcom. This OFDMA technique supports 2K-FFT, 1K-FFT, 512-FFT and 128-FFT. Interestingly, both standards do support the 256-FFT chosen for 802.16-2004. Many of the mandatory elements for this standard have been agreed upon, and a lot of the remaining work centers on the optional elements.

The OFDMA system allows signals to be divided into many lower-speed sub-channels to increase resistance to multi-path interference. For example, if a 20 MHz channel is subdivided into 1000 sub-channels, each individual user would be allowed a dynamic number of sub-channels based on their distance and needs from the cell (i.e. 4, 64, 298, 312, 346, 610 and 944). If close in, a higher modulation methodology such as 64 quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) can be used for higher bandwidth across more channels. If the user is farther away, the number of channels can be reduced with a resultant power increase per channel. Throughput slows a bit, but distant users are not dropped.

WiBro

Koreans are always at the forefront of broadband adoption. They were ready to deploy a mobile wireless MAN and felt the standards as existed were good enough for that purpose, so WiBro was born. Product is already being shipped by several vendors in an OFDMA version using 1K-FFT in the 2.3 GHz band.

The WiMax Forum has chosen to incorporate this standard into its own testing. It is speculation but probably not far fetched that this may have influenced the Forum’s decision to choose OFDMA for its Mobile WiMax standard (early indications were that the OFDM 256-FFT was being considered.) In any event, the potential of the Korean deployments seems to have strongly influenced WiMax proponents to leverage the technology as a primary 3G competitor.

ETSI HiperMAN Overview

HiperMAN aims at providing broadband Wireless DSL, while covering a large geographic area. The standardization focuses on broadband solutions optimized for access in frequency bands below 11 GHz (mainly in the 3.5 GHz band). HiperMAN is optimized for packet switched networks, and supports fixed and nomadic applications, primarily in the residential and small business user environments.

HIPERMAN will be an interoperable broadband fixed wireless access system operating at radio frequencies between 2 GHz and 11 GHz. The HIPERMAN standard is designed for Fixed Wireless Access provisioning to SMEs and residences using the basic MAC (DLC and CLs) of the IEEE 802.16-2001 standard. It has been developed in very close cooperation with IEEE 802.16, such that the HIPERMAN standard and a subset of the IEEE 802.16a-2003 standard will interoperate seamlessly. HIPERMAN is capable of supporting ATM, though the main focus is on IP traffic. It offers various service categories, full Quality of Service, fast connection control management, strong security, fast adaptation of coding, modulation and transmit power to propagation conditions and is capable of non-line-of-sight operation. HIPERMAN enables both PMP and Mesh network configurations. HIPERMAN also supports both FDD and TDD frequency allocations and H-FDD terminals. All this is achieved with a minimum number of options to simplify implementation and interoperability.

WiMAX is a standards-based technology enabling the delivery of last mile wireless broadband access as an alternative to cable and DSL. It will provide fixed, nomadic, portable and, eventually, mobile wireless broadband connectivity without the need for direct line-of-sight with a base station. In a typical cell radius deployment of three to ten kilometers, WiMax systems deliver capacity is expected to be up to 40 Mbps per channel, for fixed and portable access applications and are expected to provide up to 15 Mbps capacity for Mobile network deployments within a typical cell radius deployment of up to three kilometers. The WiMAX technology can be deployed as embedded solution in notebook computers and PDAs. WiMax stationary platform is based on the IEEE 802.16 2004 and current ETSI HiperMAN standard and portable/mobile platforms is based on the IEEE802.16e standard

Benefits of a Global Standard

A global standard simplifies the equipment vendor process, reduces costs, speeds customer acceptance and adoption and encourages faster product and service innovation.

The best example of the benefits of a global broadband standard can be found in the early decision by European cellular carriers to adopt the global system for mobile communications (GSM). This standard eventually caught on in many regions from Asia to the Middle East and Africa.

It is in many ways the de-facto international standard for cellular service. This commonality of standard resulted in very rapid adoption of cellular wireless service as well as strong innovation and progressive product offers by carriers, ranging from using one's cell phone to pay for vending machine products to short message service (SMS) products.

In the US the relatively fragmented technology environment with three primary competing technologies has prevented intercarrier roaming onto disparate networks. It also resulted in higher costs for service and phone products (which have to be re-configured by vendors to work on various technologies).

List of notables’ international and regional Standards organization

International standards organizations

Accellera Organization - http://www.accellera.org
Automotive technology -http://www.autosar.org
Bureau International des Poids et Mesures and the related organizations established under the Metre Convention of 1875. http://www.bipm.org/en/si
Cable Television Laboratories - http://www.cablelabs.org/
International Special Committee on Radio Interference
Ecma International (previously called ECMA)
Fédération Aéronautique Internationale - http://www.fai.org
Global Grid Forum
Global supply chain standards (identification numbers, barcodes, electronic commerce transactions, RFID) - http://www.gs1.org/
Infiniband Trade Association
International Electrotechnical Commission - http://www.iec.ch/
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers - http://www.ieee.org/
Internet Engineering Task Force - http://www.ietf.org/
The International Telecommunication Union - http://www.itu.int/
ITU Radiocommunications Sector (formerly known as CCIR)
ITU Telecommunications Sector (formerly known as CCITT)
ITU Telecom Development (formerly known as BDT)
International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry - http://www.iupac.org/
Liberty Alliance - http://www.projectliberty.org/
Neutral Third Party - http://www.n3p.org/
Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards - http://www.oasis-open.org/
World Meteorological Organization
World Wide Web Consortium - http://www.w3.org/

Regional standards organizations

European Committee for Standardization - http://www.cenorm.be/
European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization - http://www.cenelec.org/
European Telecommunications Standards Institute - http://www.etsi.org/
Euro-Asian Council for Standardization, Metrology and Certification - http://www.easc.org.by

Standardization Process

The process of standardization can be a tedious and lengthy process, however formal standard setting is essential to developing new technologies, i.e. for quite a long time, the telecommunications industry has depended on the ITU to establish the telecommunications standards that have been adopted worldwide. The standards that are created through standards organizations lead to improved product quality, ensured interoperability of competitors’ products, and they provide a technological baseline for future research and product development. The process o establishing formal standard brings numerous benefits to the consumers including increased innovation, multiple market participants, reduced production costs, and the efficiency effects of product interchangeability.

Established Standards are distributed on a commercial basis rather than being provided free in order to provide funding for standards developers.

Moreover, standards produced by non-governmental entities remain the intellectual property of their developers and are protected, just like any other publications, by copyright laws and international treaties.

Of recent a new class of standards setters has appeared on the standardization arena, these are the special interest groups and the industry consortia. Though low on financial resources, some of them enjoy truly international acceptance. One example is the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) whose standards for HTML, CSS, and XML are used universally throughout the world. There are also community-driven associations such as the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), a world-wide network of volunteers who collaborate to set standards for lower level software solutions, some industry-driven standards development efforts are also been funded by large corporations.

Benefits of Standardization

Benefits of Standardization

Standardization is an essential requirement for the open exchange of information; without it, the network simply will not work, however, standardization could also impede rather than accelerate progress to avoid this: standards must be produced at a speed that is consistent with market demand and standards must consider all interested parties, or they will not be widely acceptable.

Some benefits that can be linked to standardization are listed below:

enables interoperability
encourages innovation, fosters enterprise and opens up new markets
creates trust and confidence in products
expands the market, brings down costs and increases competition
helps prevent the duplication of effort

Regulations and Standards: what is it?

Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary defined regulation as an official rule or the act of controlling, and standard as a level of quality, with this we can define Regulations and Standards as an official rule or the act of controlling the level of quality. The above definition implies that Regulations and standards are set by an Authoritative body; it can be a government, special interest group, organization or an enterprise with expert knowledge that is highly regarded within the industry. In essense, Standards are documented, voluntary agreement which establish important criteria for products, services and process to ensure that they meet their defined purpose and are comparable and compatible.
Regulations and standards exists in several industries, however the focus of this blog is on regulations and standards for Wireless Communication with emphasis on WiMax Technology.