Broadband Wireless Access - The Next Wireless Revolution

Broadband wireless access is the third wireless revolution, after cellphones (1990s) and Wi-Fi (2000s). It is viewed by many carriers and cable operators as a "disruptive" technology and rightly so. The broadcast nature of wireless transmission offers ubiquity and immediate access for both fixed and mobile users, clearly a vital element of nextgeneration quadruple play (i.e., voice, video, data, and mobility) services. Unlike wired access (copper, coax, fiber), a large portion of the deployment costs is incurred only when a subscriber signs up for service. An increasing number of municipal governments around the world are financing the deployment of multihop wireless networks with the overall aim of providing ubiquitous Internet access and enhanced public services. This tutorial will provide a comparative assessment of the key issues and technologies underpinning promising broadband wireless access solutions such as 802.16 (Wi-Max), long-range/multihop 802.11 (Wi-Fi), wireless DOCSIS, 3G/4G, mobile TV, digital TV broadcast, 802.20 (mobile broadband), 802.21 (media independent handoff and interoperability), and the emerging 802.22 (wireless regional area networks) standard. Key topics include licensed and unlicensed spectrum consideration; reliable physical layer transmission using multiple antennas; multichannel medium access protocols with QoS provisioning; wireless access topologies: point-to-point, point-to-multipoint, peerto- peer multihop (mesh); wireless multimedia services: wireless IP-TV, wireless VoIP; mobility; cognitive radio technologies; advanced wireless security; wireless/wireline integration.