The Mobile Broadband WiMAX Standard

Mobile worldwide interoperability for microwave access (WiMAX) is a wireless standard that introduces orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) and other key features to enable mobile broadband services at a vehicular speed of up to 120 km/h. WiMAX complements and competes with wireless local area networks (WLANs) and the third generation (3G) wireless standards on coverage and data rate. More specifically, WiMAX supports a much larger coverage area than WLAN, does not require line of sight for a connection, and is significantly less costly compared to the current 3G cellular standards. Although the WiMAX standard supports both fixed and mobile broadband data services, the latter have a much larger market. Therefore, this article will briefly present the mobile WiMAX standard, the technologies deployed for the air interface and the network, and the development of the standards to support mobile multihop relays in a WiMAX network. IEEE Signal Processing Magazine This work may not be copied or reproduced in whole or in part for any commercial purpose. Permission to copy in whole or in part without payment of fee is granted for nonprofit educational and research purposes provided that all such whole or partial copies include the following: a notice that such copying is by permission of Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories, Inc.; an acknowledgment of the authors and individual contributions to the work; and all applicable portions of the copyright notice. Copying, reproduction, or republishing for any other purpose shall require a license with payment of fee to Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories, Inc. All rights reserved. Copyright c ©Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories, Inc., 2007 201 Broadway, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139