What is IEEE 802.16?
IEEE 802.16 develops the standards and recommended practices for development and deployment of broadband WMAN. IEEE 802.16 addresses the first-to-last mile delivery connection in wireless metropolitan area networks. It utilizes the bandwidth between 10 and 66 GHz and defines a Medium Access control (MAC) layer that supports multiple physical layer specification customized for the frequency band in use. The 10 to 66 GHz frequency supports continuously varying traffic levels at many licensed frequencies.

Salient Features
·        Broadband services at minimal cost.
·        Scalable
·        Sharing data, voice and video
·        Fast & Easy Installation
·        Highly Efficient
·        High Capacity  

Broadband Wireless Access (BWA)
Broadband wireless Access is the technology behind IEEE 802.16 Wireless MAN standard. It has given a new way for rapid internet connection, data, voice, and video services. It has extended the limits of Optical fiber communication and has more viable than traditional cable networks or Digital Subscriber Line (DSL). IEEE sought to make BWA as widely available by developing and deploying WirelessMAN air interface for wireless metropolitan area networks.
IEEE standard 802.16 support point-to-multipoint topology wherein each base station , is generally connected to public network, and communicates to large number of stationary subscriber stations, which is normally mounted on rooftop. Each base station allocates uplink and downlink bandwidth to satisfy the prioritized bandwidth requirement of the subscribers through WirelessMAN MAC. The air interface has been designed to carry any data or multimedia traffic with full Quality of Service (QoS) support. MAC support bursts frequency-division duplex (FDD) and time-division Duplex (TDD) in a consistent framework. It also supports Real-time adaptive modulation and coding so that, in each burst, communication in the link to each subscriber station is optimized at that instant.
IEEE has set up different working groups for development and deployment 0f 802.16
(a) IEEE Standard 802.16a: This workgroup is responsible to extend the scope to licensed and license-exempt bands from 2 to 11 GHz.
(b) IEEE Standard 802.16c: This workgroup is responsible for developing 10-66 GHz system profiles to help interoperability specifications.
(c) IEEE Standard 802.16.2: It follows the practice on “Coexistence of Fixed Broadband Wireless Access Systems” covering 10-66 GHz.
(d) IEEE Standard 802.16.e: This task group is responsible for enhancement to support mobility.
(e) IEEE Standard 802.16.d: This task group is responsible for developing and enhancing 2-11 GHz system profiles.

Broadband Wireless Access Applications