Comparative study between Mobile WiMAX

(IEEE802.16e based) and 3GPP LTE

Karim Ahmed Samy Banawan, Mohammed Salaheldin Abdullah,
and Mohamed Abdel Ghani Mohammed El-Gharabawy.

Abstract: In this paper we present a comparative study between Mobile WiMAX

(IEEE802.16e based) and 3GPP LTE, we present the key technologies that are
utilized in both systems, then PHY layers are presented ,besides Network
Architectures. Our conclusions and result are also introduced.
Key terms: Mobile WiMAX, IEEE802.16e, LTE, PHY layer, OFDMA,SC-
FDMA,MIMO, system architecture.

I.INTRODUCTION
The demand for high data rate
wireless multi-media applications has
increased significantly in the past few
years. The wireless user‘s pressure
towards faster communications, no
matter whether mobile, nomadic, or
fixed positioned, without extra cost is
nowadays a reality. Finding an optimal
solution for this dilemma is a
challenge, not only for manufacturers
but also for network operators. The
recent strategy followed within ETSI
3GPP LTE and the WiMAX Forum
was a new and evolutionary concept,
especially for mobile applications.
Both have adopted a new PHY layer
multi-carrier transmission with a
MIMO scheme, a promising
combination offering a high data rate
at low cost.
The 3GPP LTE is acronym for
long term evolution of UMTS.The
multiple access scheme in LTE
downlink uses Orthogonal Frequency
Division Multiple Access (OFDMA)
and uplink uses Single Carrier
Frequency Division Multiple Access
(SC-FDMA). These multiple access
solutions provide orthogonality
between the users, reducing the
interference and improving the
network capacity. The resource
allocation in the frequency domain
takes place with a resolution of 180
kHz resource blocks both in uplink and
in downlink. The frequency dimension
in the packet scheduling is one reason
for the high LTE capacity. The uplink
user specific allocation is continuous to
enable single carrier transmission
while the downlink can use resource
blocks freely from different parts of
the spectrum. The uplink single carrier
solution is also designed to allow
efficient terminal power amplifier
design, which is relevant for the
terminal battery life. LTE solution
enables spectrum flexibility where the
transmission bandwidth can be
selected between 1.4 MHz and 20
MHz depending on the available
spectrum. The 20 MHz bandwidth can
provide up to 150 Mbps downlink user
data rate with 2 × 2 MIMO, and 300
Mbps with 4 × 4 MIMO. The uplink
peak data rate is 75 Mbps. The high
network capacity also requires efficient
network architecture in addition to the
advanced radio features.
The target in 3GPP Release 8 is
to improve the network scalability for
traffic increase and to minimize the
end-to-end latency by reducing the
number of network elements. All radio
protocols, mobility management,
header compression and all packet
retransmissions are located in the base
stations called eNodeB. eNodeB
includes all those algorithms that are
located in Radio Network Controller
(RNC) in 3GPP Release 6 architecture.
Also the core network is streamlined
by separating the user and the control
planes. The Mobility Management
Entity (MME) is just the control plane
element while the user plane bypasses
MME directly to System Architecture
Evolution (SAE) Gateway (GW). The
architecture evolution is This Release 8
core network is also often referred to
as Evolved Packet Core (EPC) while
for the whole system the term Evolved
Packet System (EPS) can also be used.
WiMAX is the commonly
used name for broadband wireless
access based on the IEEE 802.16
family of standards.WiMAX stands for
worldwide interoperability for
microwave access. The WiMAX forum
is an industry-led, nonprofit
corporation formed to promote and
certify compatibility and inter-
operability of 802.16 broadband
wireless products. IEEE 802.16 is an
IEEE Standard for Wireless MANs
(WMANs). The most recent addition
to the WiMAX family of standards is
802.16e, which is also called ‗Mobile
WiMAX. ‘ The IEEE standards specify
the physical layer (PHY) and the
Medium Access Layer (MAC), with no
definition of higher layers. For IEEE
802.16, those are addressed in the
WiMAX Forum Network Working
Group. There is a range of options
specified in IEEE 802.16, making the
standards much more fragmented than
what is seen in 3GPP and 3GPP2
standards. The 802.16 standard defines
four different physical layers, of which
two are certified by the WiMAX
forum:
● OFDM-PHY: based on an FFT size
of 256 and aimed at fixed networks.
● OFDMA-PHY (scalable): based on
an FFT size from 128 to 2048 for
802.16e.
In addition to the multiple
physical layers, the 802.16 standards
support a range of options, including:
TDD, FDD, and half-duplex FDD (H-
FDD) operation, TDM access with
variable frame size (2–20 ms),OFDM
with a configurable cyclic prefix
length, A wide range of bandwidths
supported (1.25–28 MHz), Multiple
modulation and coding schemes:
QPSK, 16QAM, and 64QAM
combined with convolutional codes,
convolutional Turbo codes, block
Turbo codes, and LDPC (Low-Density
Parity Check) codes, Hybrid ARQ and
Adaptive antenna system (AAS) and
MIMO.
There is also a range of Radio
Resource Management (RRM) options,
MAC features and enhancements in the
standards. The WiMAX forum defines
system profiles that reduce all the
optional features to a smaller set to
allow interoperability among different
vendors. This is done through an
industry selection of features for MAC,
PHY, and RF from 802.16
specifications and forms the basis for
testing conformance and
interoperability. Products certified by
the WiMAX forum adhere to a
Certification Profile that is based on a
combination of band of operation,
duplexing option and bandwidth. The
intended applications with the original
802.16 standard were fixed access and
backhaul, mainly for line-of-sight
operation. The addition of a physical
layer for non-line-of-sight applications
in IEEE 802.16-2004 and support for
mobility in IEEE 802.16e opens up the
standard for nomadic and mobile use.
In addition, provisions for multicast
and broadcast services (MBS) are also
included. This makes the standard
more similar to the evolved 3G
standards, but coming from a
completely different direction. The
IEEE standards such as 802.16 are
driven by the datacom industry as
Layer 1 and 2 standards, starting with
line-of-sight use for limited mobility,
targeting best-effort data applications
and now moving to higher mobility
and encompassing also other
II. KEY TECHNOLOGIES
1- Common key technologies:
(a) Multiple Antenna support
Multi-antenna techniques can
be seen as a joint name for a set of
techniques with the common theme
that they rely on the use of multiple
antennas at the receiver and/or the
transmitter, in combination with more
or less advanced signal processing.
Multi-antenna techniques can be used
to achieve improved system
performance, including improved
system capacity (more users per cell)
and improved coverage (possibility for
larger cells), as well as improved
service provisioning, for example,
higher per-user data rates .both
systems support Multiple antenna
systems. For the LTE Multiple antenna
systems are integral part of its
specifications.
 Multiple antennas at the transmitter
and/or the receiver can be used to
provide additional diversity against
fading on the radio channel. In this
case, the channels experienced by
the different antennas should have
low mutual correlation, implying
the need for a sufficiently large
inter-antenna distance (spatial
diversity).
 Multiple antennas at the transmitter
and/or the receiver can be used to ‗
shape ‘ the overall antenna beam in
a certain way, for example, to
applications such as conversational
services. The evolved 3G standards are
driven by the telecom industry,
targeting non-line-of-sight use and
mobility from the beginning, optimized
end-to-end standards for voice and
later also data services, now moving to
broader data applications including
best-effort services.
maximize the overall antenna gain
in the direction of the target
receiver/transmitter or to suppress
specific dominant interfering
signals. Such beam-forming can be
based either on high or low fading
correlation between the antennas.
 The simultaneous availability of
multiple antennas at the transmitter
and the receiver can be used to
create what can be seen as multiple
parallel communication‗ channels ‘
over the radio interface. This
provides the possibility for very
high bandwidth utilization without
a corresponding reduction in power
efficiency or, in other words, the
possibility for very high data rates
within a limited bandwidth without
an un-proportionally large
degradation in terms of coverage.
Herein we will refer to this as
spatial multiplexing. It is often also
referred to as MIMO (Multi-Input
Multi- output) antenna processing.
(b) OFDMA transmission scheme:
Both systems use OFDMA as
multiple access scheme, for Mobile
WiMAX it is the multiple access
scheme for both UL and DL and for
LTE it is the multiple access scheme in
the DL only.
The OFDM is used to mitigate
the multipath fading which will result
in delay spread and frequency selective
fading instead of using complex
equalizers or high complexity rake
receivers. OFDM systems break the
available bandwidth into many
narrower sub-carriers and transmit the
data in parallel streams; each OFDM
symbol is preceded by a cyclic prefix
(CP), which is used to effectively
eliminate ISI. In practice, the OFDM
signal can be generated using IFFT
with a CP of sufficient duration,
preceding symbols do not spill over
into the FFT period, Also, Once the
channel impulse response is
determined (by periodic transmission
of known reference signals), distortion
can be corrected by applying an
amplitude and phase shift on a
subcarrier-by-subcarrier basis.
Problems of OFDM are:
susceptibility to carrier frequency
errors and a large signal peak-to-
average power ratio (PAPR).
OFDMA is an excellent choice
of transmission scheme for the 3GPP
LTE downlink and Mobile WiMAX
which allows the access of multiple
users on the available bandwidth. Each
user is assigned a specific time-
frequency resource.
(C) Hybrid ARQ with soft
combining
Fast hybrid ARQ with soft
combining is used in LTE and
WiMAX to allow the terminal to
rapidly request re-transmissions of
erroneously received transport blocks
and to provide a tool for implicit rate
adaptation. The underlying protocol is
also similar to the one used for HSPA–
multiple parallel stop-and-wait hybrid
ARQ processes. Retransmissions can
be rapidly requested after each packet
transmission, thereby minimizing the
impact on end-user performance from
erroneously received packets.
Incremental redundancy is used as the
soft combining strategy and the
receiver buffers the soft bits to be able
to do soft combining between
transmission attempts.
2-Key technologies for 3GPP LTE
system
(a) Spectrum flexibility
A high degree of spectrum
flexibility is considered one of the
main characteristics of the LTE radio
access. The aim of this spectrum
flexibility is to allow for the
deployment of the LTE radio access in
diverse spectrum with different
characteristics, including different
duplex arrangements, different sizes of
the available spectrum and different
frequency-bands-of-operation.
(i) Flexibility in duplex arrangement
One important part of the LTE
requirements in terms of spectrum
flexibility is the possibility to deploy
LTE-based radio access in both paired
and unpaired spectrum. Therefore,
LTE supports both frequency-
division-based and time-division-based
duplex arrangements. Frequency
Division Duplex (FDD) as illustrated to
the left in Fig. 1 implies that downlink
and uplink transmission take place in
different, sufficiently separated,
frequency bands. Time Division
Duplex (TDD), as illustrated to the
right in Fig. 1, implies that downlink
and uplink transmission take place in
different, non-overlapping time slots.
Thus, TDD can operate in unpaired
spectrum, whereas FDD requires
paired spectrum.
Support for both paired and
unpaired spectrum is part of the 3GPP
specifications already from Release 99
through the use of FDD-based
WCDMA/HSPA radio access in paired
allocations and TDD-based TD-
CDMA/TD-SCDMA radio access in
unpaired allocations. However, this is
achieved by means of relatively
different radio-access technologies
and, as a consequence, terminals
capable of both FDD and TDD
operations are fairly uncommon. LTE,
on the other hand, supports both FDD
and TDD within a single radio-access
technology, leading to a minimum of
deviation between FDD and TDD for
LTE-based radio access.
LTE also supports half-duplex
FDD at the terminal (illustrated in the
middle of Fig. 1). In half-duplex FDD,
Fig. 1. Frequency- and time-division duplex.
(ii) Flexibility in frequency-band-of-
operation
LTE is envisioned to be
deployed on a per-need basis when and
where spectrum can be made available,
either by the assignment of new
spectrum for mobile communication,
such as the 2.6 and 3.5 GHz band, or
by the migration to LTE of spectrum
currently used for other mobile-
communication technologies, such as
GSM or cdma2000 systems, or even
non-mobile radio technologies such as
in current broadcast spectrum. As a
consequence, it is required that the
LTE radio access should be able to
operate in a wide range of frequency
bands, from as low as 450 MHz band
up to, at least, 3.5 GHz.
transmission and reception at a specific
terminal are separated in both
frequency and time. The base station
still uses full duplex as it
simultaneously may schedule different
terminals in uplink and downlink; this
is similar to, for example, GSM
operation. The main benefit with half-
duplex FDD is the reduced terminal
complexity as no duplex filter is
needed in the terminal, which is
especially beneficial in case of multi-
band terminals which otherwise would
need multiple sets of duplex filters.
(iii) Bandwidth flexibility
Related to the possibility to
deploy the LTE radio access in
different frequency bands is the
possibility of being able to operate
LTE with different transmission
bandwidths on both downlink and
uplink. The main reason for this is that
the amount of spectrum being available
for LTE may vary significantly
between different frequency bands and
also depending on the exact situation
of the operator. Furthermore, the
possibility to operate in different
spectrum allocations gives the
possibility for gradual migration of
spectrum from other radio access
technologies to LTE.
 LTE supports operation in a
wide range of spectrum allocations,
achieved by a flexible transmission
bandwidth being part of the LTE
specifications. To efficiently support
very high data rates when spectrum is
available, a wide transmission
bandwidth is necessary. However, a
sufficiently large amount of spectrum
may not always be available, either due
to the band-of-operation or due to a
gradual migration from another radio-
access technology, in which case LTE
can be operated with a more narrow
transmission bandwidth. Obviously, in
such cases, the maximum achievable
data rates will be reduced
correspondingly.
The LTE physical-layer
specifications are bandwidth-agnostic
and do not make any particular
assumption on the supported
transmission bandwidths beyond a
minimum value. The basic radio-
access specification including the
physical-layer and protocol
specifications, allows for any
transmission bandwidth ranging from
roughly 1 MHz up to around 20 MHz.
At the same time, at an initially stage,
radio-frequency requirements are only
specified for a limited subset of
transmission bandwidth, corresponding
to what is predicted to be relevant
spectrum-allocation sizes and relevant
migration scenarios. Thus, in practice
LTE radio access supports a limited set
of transmission bandwidths, but
additional transmission bandwidths can
easily be supported by updating only
the RF specifications.
(b) Channel-dependent scheduling
and rate adaptation
At the core of the LTE
transmission scheme is the use of
shared-channel transmission, with the
overall time-frequency resource
dynamically shared between users.
This is similar to the approach taken in
HSDPA, although the realization of the
shared resource differs between the
two – time and frequency in case of
LTE vs. time and channelization codes
in case of HSDPA. The use of shared-
channel transmission is well matched
to the rapidly varying resource
requirements posed by packet data and
also enables several of the other key
technologies used by LTE.
The scheduler controls, for each time
instant, to which users the shared
resources should be assigned. The
scheduler also determines the data rate
to be used for each link, that is, rate
adaptation can be seen as a part of the
scheduler. The scheduler is thus a key
element and to a large extent
determines the overall downlink
system performance, especially in a
highly loaded network. Both downlink
and uplink transmissions are subject to
tight scheduling. A substantial gain in
system capacity can be achieved if the
channel conditions are taken into
account in the scheduling decision, so-
called channel-dependent scheduling.
This is exploited already in HSPA,
where the downlink scheduler
transmits to a user when its channel
conditions are advantageous to
maximize the data rate, and is, to some
extent, also possible for the Enhanced
Uplink. However, LTE has, in addition
to the time domain, also access to the
frequency domain, due to the use of
OFDM in the downlink and DFTS-
OFDM in the uplink. Therefore, the
scheduler can, for each frequency
region, select the user with the best
channel conditions. In other words,
scheduling in LTE can take channel
variations into account not only in the
time domain, as HSPA, but also in the
frequency domain. This is illustrated in
Fig. 2.
 The possibility for channel-
dependent scheduling in the frequency
domain is particularly useful at low
terminal speeds, in other words when
the channel is varying slowly with
time. Channel-dependent scheduling
relies on channel-quality variations
between users to obtain a gain in
system capacity. For delay-sensitive
services, a time-domain only scheduler
may be forced to schedule a particular
user, despite the channel quality not
Fig. 2. Downlink channel-dependent scheduling in time and frequency domains.
(i) Downlink scheduling
To support downlink
scheduling, a terminal may provide the
network with channel-status reports
indicating the instantaneous downlink
channel quality in both the time and
frequency domain. The channel status
can, for example, be obtained by
being at its peak. In such situations,
exploiting channel-quality variations
also in the frequency domain will help
improving the overall performance of
the system. For LTE, scheduling
decisions can be taken as often as once
every 1 ms and the granularity in the
frequency domain is 180 kHz. This
allows for relatively fast channel
variations to be tracked and utilized by
the scheduler.
measuring on a reference signal
transmitted on the downlink and used
also for demodulation purposes. Based
on the channel-status report, the
downlink scheduler can assign
resources for downlink transmission to
different mobile terminals, taking the
channel quality into account in the
scheduling decision. In principle, a
scheduled terminal can be assigned an
arbitrary combination of 180 kHz wide
resource blocks in each 1 ms
scheduling interval.
(ii) Uplink scheduling
The LTE uplink is based on
orthogonal separation of different
uplink transmissions and it is the task
of the uplink scheduler to assign
resources in both time and frequency
domain (combined TDMA/FDMA) to
different mobile terminals. Scheduling
decisions, taken once per 1 ms, control
what set of mobile terminals are
allowed to transmit within a cell during
a given time interval and, for each
terminal, on what frequency resources
the transmission is to take place and
what uplink data rate (transport format)
to use.
Channel conditions can also be
taken into account in the uplink
scheduling process, similar to the
downlink scheduling. However,
obtaining information about the uplink
channel conditions is a non trivial task.
Therefore, different means to obtain
uplink diversity are important as a
complement in situations where uplink
channel-dependent scheduling is not
suitable.
(c) Inter-cell interference
coordination
LTE provides orthogonality
between users within a cell in both
uplink and downlink, that is, at least in
principle, there is no interference
between transmissions within one cell
(no intra-cell interference). Hence,
LTE performance in terms of spectrum
efficiency and available data rates is,
relatively speaking, more limited by
interference from other cells (inter-cell
interference) compared to
WCDMA/HSPA. Means to reduce or
control the inter-cell interference can
therefore, potentially, provide
substantial benefits to LTE
performance, especially in terms of the
service (data rates, etc.) that can be
provided to users at the cell edge.
Inter-cell interference
coordination is a scheduling strategy in
which the cell-edge data rates are
increased by taking inter-cell
interference into account. Basically,
inter-cell interference coordination
implies certain (frequency-domain)
restrictions to the uplink and downlink
schedulers in order to control the inter-
cell interference. By restricting the
transmission power of parts of the
spectrum in one cell, the interference
seen in the neighboring cells in this
part of the spectrum will be reduced.
This part of the spectrum can then be
used to provide higher data rates for
users in the neighboring cell. In
essence, the frequency reuse factor is
different in different parts of the cell
(Fig. 3).
 Fig. 3 Example of inter-cell interference coordination.
Inter-cell interference
coordination is mainly a scheduling
strategy, taking the situation in
neighboring cells into account. Thus,
inter-cell interference coordination is
to a large extent an implementation
issue and hardly visible in the
specifications. This also implies that
interference coordination can be
applied to only a selected set of cells,
depending on the requirements set by a
particular deployment. To aid the
implementation of various inter-cell
interference coordination schemes,
LTE supports exchange of interference
indicators between base stations.
(d) Multicast and broadcast support
Multi-cell broadcast implies
transmission of the same information
from multiple cells as described. By
exploiting this at the terminal,
effectively using signal power from
multiple cell sites at the detection, a
substantial improvement in coverage
(or higher broadcast data rates) can be
achieved. LTE takes this one step
further to provide highly efficient
multi-cell broadcast. By transmitting
not only identical signals from multiple
cell sites (with identical coding and
modulation), but also synchronize the
transmission timing between the cells,
the signal at the mobile terminal will
appear exactly as a signal transmitted
from a single cell site and subject to
multi-path propagation. Due to the
OFDM robustness to multi-path
propagation, such multi-cell
transmission, also referred to as
Multicast–Broadcast Single-Frequency
Network (MBSFN) transmission, will
then not only improve the received
signal strength, but also eliminate the
inter-cell interference. Thus, with
OFDM, multi-cell broadcast/multicast
throughput may eventually be limited
by noise only and can then, in case of
small cells, reach extremely high
values.
(e) New transmission scheme for the
uplink: SC-FDMA(DFTS-OFDM)
While many of the requirements
for the design of the LTE uplink
physical layer and multiple-access
scheme are similar to those of the
downlink, the uplink also poses some
unique challenges. Some of the
desirable attributes for the LTE uplink
include:
 Orthogonal uplink transmission by
different User Equipment (UEs), to
minimize intra-cell interference
and maximize capacity.
 Flexibility to support a wide range
of data rates, and to enable data
rate to be adapted to the SINR
(Signal-to-Interference plus Noise
Ratio).
 Sufficiently low Peak-to-Average
Power Ratio (PAPR) of the
transmitted waveform, to avoid
excessive cost, size and power
consumption of the UE Power
Amplifier (PA).
 Ability to exploit the frequency
diversity afforded by the wideband
channel (up to 20 MHz), even
when transmitting at low data rates.
 Support for frequency-selective
scheduling.
 Support for advanced multiple-
antenna techniques, to exploit
spatial diversity and enhance
uplink capacity.
The multiple-access scheme selected
for the LTE uplink so as to fulfill these
principle characteristics is Single-
Carrier Frequency Division Multiple
Access (SC-FDMA).
A major advantage of SC-
FDMA over the Direct-Sequence Code
Division Multiple Access (DS-CDMA)
scheme used in UMTS is that it
achieves intra-cell orthogonality even
in frequency-selective channels. SC-
FDMA avoids the high level of intra-
cell interference associated with DS-
CDMA which significantly reduces
system capacity and limits the use of
adaptive modulation. A code-
multiplexed uplink also suffers the
drawback of an increased PAPR if
multi-code transmission is used from a
single UE.
The use of OFDMA for the
LTE uplink would have been attractive
due to the possibility for full uplink-
downlink commonality. In principle,
an OFDMA scheme similar to the LTE
downlink could satisfy all the uplink
design criteria listed above, except for
low PAPR. SC-FDMA combines the
desirable characteristics of OFDM
with the low CM/PAPR of single-
carrier transmission schemes.
Like OFDM, SC-FDMA
divides the transmission bandwidth
into multiple parallel subcarriers, with
the orthogonality between the
subcarriers being maintained in
frequency-selective channels by the
use of a Cyclic Prefix (CP) or guard
period. The use of a CP prevents Inter-
Symbol Interference (ISI) between SC-
FDMA information blocks. It
transforms the linear convolution of
the multipath channel into a circular
convolution, enabling the receiver to
equalize the channel simply by scaling
Fig. 4. SC-FDMA time-domain transmit processing.
each subcarrier by a complex gain
factor.
However, unlike OFDM, where
the data symbols directly modulate
each subcarrier independently (such
that the amplitude of each subcarrier at
a given time instant is set by the
constellation points of the digital
modulation scheme), in SC-FDMA the
signal modulated onto a given
subcarrier is a linear combination of all
the data symbols transmitted at the
same time instant. Thus in each symbol
period, all the transmitted subcarriers
of an SC-FDMA signal carry a
component of each modulated data
symbol. This gives SC-FDMA its
crucial single-carrier property, which
results in the PAPR being significantly
lower than pure multicarrier
transmission schemes such as OFDM.
(f) SC-FDMA Principles
(i) SC-FDMA Transmission Structure
An SC-FDMA signal can, in
theory, be generated in either the time-
domain or the frequency domain.
Although the two techniques are duals
and ‗functionally‘ equivalent, in
practice, the time-domain generation is
less bandwidth-efficient due to time-
domain filtering and associated
requirements for filter ramp-up and
ramp-down times.
(ii) T-Domain Signal Generation
Time-domain generation of an
SC-FDMA signal is shown in Fig. 4.
It is similar to conventional single-
carrier transmission.
 The input bit stream is mapped
into a single-carrier stream of QPSK or
QAM symbols, which are grouped into
symbol-blocks of length M. This may
be followed by an optional repetition
stage, in which each block is repeated
L times, and a user-specific frequency
shift, by which each user‘s
transmission may be translated to a
particular part of the available
Fig. 5. Distributed transmission with equal-spacing between occupied subcarriers.
Thus, the transmitted signal
spectrum in this case is similar to what
would be obtained if data symbols
were only modulated on every Lth
subcarrier of an OFDM signal. Since
such a signal occupies only one in
every L subcarriers, the transmission is
said to be ‗distributed‘ and is one way
of providing a frequency-diversity
gain.
By varying the block length M
and the repetition factor L, under the
constraint that the total number of
possible occupied subcarriers in the
bandwidth is constant (ML = constant),
a wide range of data rates can be
supported.
When no symbol-block
repetition is performed (L = 1), the
signal occupies consecutive subcarriers
and the transmission is said to be
bandwidth. A CP is then inserted.
After filtering (e.g. with a root-raised
cosine pulse-shaping filter), the
resulting signal is transmitted.
The repetition of the symbol
blocks results in the spectrum of the
transmitted signal only being non-zero
at certain subcarrier frequencies
(namely every Lth subcarrier in this
example) as shown in Fig. 5.
‗localized‘. Localized transmissions
are beneficial for supporting
frequency-selective scheduling, for
example when the eNodeB has
knowledge of the uplink channel
conditions (e.g. as a result of channel
sounding), or for inter-cell interference
coordination. Localized transmission
may also provide frequency diversity if
the set of consecutive subcarriers is
hopped in the frequency domain,
especially if the time interval between
hops is shorter than the duration of a
block of channel-coded data.
Different users‘ transmissions,
using different repetition factors or
bandwidths, remain orthogonal on the
uplink when the following conditions
are met:
 The users occupy different sets of
subcarriers. This may in general be
 accomplished either by introducing
a user-specific frequency shift
(typically for the case of localized
transmissions) or alternatively by
arranging for different users to
occupy interleaved sets of
subcarriers (typically for the case
of distributed transmissions). The
latter method as Interleaved
Frequency Division Multiple
Access (IFDMA).
 The received signals are properly
synchronized in time and
frequency.
 The CP is longer than the sum of
the delay spread of the channel and
any residual timing synchr-
onization error between the users.
Fig. 6. SC-FDMA frequency-domain transmission processing (DFT-S-OFDM) showing localized and
distributed subcarrier mappings.
The first step of DFT-S-OFDM
SC-FDMA signal generation is to
perform an M-point DFT operation on
each block of M QAM data symbols.
Zeros are then inserted among the
outputs of the DFT in order to match
The SC-FDMA time-domain generated
signal has a similar level of PAPR as
pulse-shaped single-carrier
modulation. ISI in multipath channels
is prevented by the CP, which enables
efficient equalization at the receiver by
means of a Frequency Domain
Equalizer (FDE).
(iii) F-Domain Signal Generation
(DFT-S-OFDM)
Generation of an SC-FDMA
signal in the frequency domain uses a
Discrete Fourier Transform-Spread
OFDM (DFT-S-OFDM) structure as
shown in Fig. 6.
the DFT size to an N-subcarrier OFDM
modulator (typically an Inverse Fast
Fourier Transform (IFFT)). The zero-
padded DFT output is mapped to the N
subcarriers, with the positions of the
zeros determining to which subcarriers
the DFT-precoded data is mapped.
Usually N is larger than the
maximum number of occupied
subcarriers, thus providing for efficient
oversampling and ‗sinc‘ (sin(x)/x)
pulse-shaping. The equivalence of
DFT-S-OFDM and a time-domain-
generated SC-FDMA transmission can
readily be seen by considering the case
of M = N, where the DFT operation
cancels the IFFT of the OFDM
modulator resulting in the data
symbols being transmitted serially in
the time domain. However, this
simplistic construction would not
provide any oversampling or pulse-
shape filtering.
As with the time-domain
approach, DFT-S-OFDM is capable of
generating both localized and
distributed transmissions:
• Localized transmission. The
subcarrier mapping allocates a group
of M adjacent subcarriers to a user.
M<N results in zero being appended to
the output of the DFT spreader
resulting in an upsampled/interpolated
version of the original M QAM data
symbols at the IFFT output of the
OFDM modulator. The transmitted
signal is thus similar to a narrowband
single carrier with a CP (equivalent to
time-domain generation with repetition
factor L = 1) and ‗sinc‘ pulse-shaping
filtering (circular filtering).
• Distributed transmission. The
subcarrier mapping allocates M
equally-spaced subcarriers (e.g. every
Lth subcarrier). (L − 1) zeros are
inserted between the M DFT outputs,
and additional zeros are appended to
either side of the DFT output prior to
the IFFT (ML<N). As with the
localized case, the zeros appended on
either side of the DFT output provide
upsampling or sinc interpolation, while
the zeros inserted between the DFT
outputs produce waveform repetition
in the time domain. This results in a
transmitted signal similar to time-
domain IFDMA with repetition factor
L and ‗sinc‘ pulse-shaping filtering.
As for the time-domain SC-
FDMA signal generation,
orthogonality between different users
with different data rate requirements
can be achieved by assigning each user
a unique set of subcarriers. The CP
structure is the same as for the time-
domain signal generation, and
therefore the same efficient FDE
techniques can be employed at the
receiver.
It is worth noting that, in
principle, any unitary matrix can be
used in the place of the DFT for the
spreading operation with similar
performance. However, the use of non-
DFT spreading would result in
increased PAPR since the transmitted
signal would no longer have the single
carrier characteristic.
3- Key technologies of Mobile
WiMAX:
(a) Spectrum, bandwidth options
and duplexing arrangement
The Release 1 WiMAX profiles
cover operation in licensed spectrum
allocations in the 2.3, 2.5, 3.3, and 3.5
GHz bands. The channel bandwidths
supported are 5, 7, 8.75, and 10 MHz.
While WiMAX supports TDD,
FDD, and half-duplex FDD, the first
release only supports TDD operation.
TDD enables adjustment of the
downlink/uplink ratio for asymmetric
traffic, does not require paired
spectrum, and has a less complex
transceiver design. To counter
interference issues, TDD does,
however, require system-wide
synchronization and use of the same
uplink/downlink ratio in neighboring
cells. The reason is the potential for
mobile-to-mobile and base station-to-
base station interference if uplink and
downlink allocations overlap, which
becomes an issue in multi-cell
deployments. Because of adjacent
channel interference, system-wide
synchronization may also be required
for TDD operators deployed on
adjacent or near-adjacent channels.
While the initial profiles and
deployment of WiMAX use TDD as
the preferred mode, FDD may be
introduced in the longer term. The
reason may be local regulatory
requirements or to address need for
more extended multi-cell coverage
where FDD may become more
suitable.
(b) Quality-of-service handling
A connection-oriented Quality-
of-Service (QoS) mechanism is
implemented, enabling end-to end QoS
control. The QoS parameters are set
per service flow, with multiple service
flows possible to/from a mobile
station. The parameters define
transmission ordering and scheduling
on the air interface and can be
negotiated statically or dynamically
through MAC messages.
Applications supported through the
WiMAX QoS mechanism are:
● Unsolicited Grant Service (UGS):
VoIP
● Real-Time Polling Service (rtPS):
Streaming Audio or Video
● Extended Real-Time Polling Service
(ErtPS): Voice with Activity
● Non-Real-Time Polling Service
(nrtPS): File Transfer Protocol (FTP)
● Best-Effort Service (BE): Data
Transfer, Web Browsing, etc.
(c) Mobility
Mobile WiMAX supports both
sleep mode and idle mode for more
efficient power management. In sleep
mode, there is a pre-negotiated period
of absence from the radio interface to
the serving base station, where the
mobile station may power down or
scan other neighboring base stations.
There are different ‗ power saving
classes ‘ suitable for applications with
different QoS types, each having
different sleep mode parameters. There
is also an idle mode, where the
terminal is not registered to any base
station and instead periodically scans
the network at discrete intervals. There
are three handover methods supported,
with Hard Handover (HHO) being
mandatory and Fast Base-Station
Switching (FBSS) and Diversity
handover (MDHO) being optional.
(d) Fractional frequency reuse
WiMAX can operate with a
frequency reuse of one, but co-channel
interference may in this case degrade
the quality for users at the cell edge.
However, a flexible subchannel reuse
is made possible by dividing the frame
into permutation zones as described
above. In this way, it is possible to
have a subchannel reuse by proper
configuration of the subchannel usage
for the users. For users at the cell
edges, the Base Station operates on a
zone with a fraction of the
subchannels, while users close to the
Base Station can operate on a zone
with all subchannels. As shown in the
example in Figure 7, there can be an
effective reuse of not supported
frequencies for users at the cell edge,
while still maintaining a reuse of one
for the OFDMA carrier as a whole.
 Fig.7 Fractional frequency reuse

III.PHY LAYER
1- PHY layer for WiMAX (IEEE802.16e based)

(a) System block diagram

Fig.8 The block diagram of the transmitter of the downlink PHY layer of mobile WiMAX with 2-
antennas.

(b) Overview of the PHY layer the data into blocks, each of them
blocks is with the suitable size that can be
transmitted in one frame.
(1) padding one: is used if the data
(3) Randomizer:
size from the MAC layer is less
Aim: The randomization process
than the frame size according to the
ensures that there is no long runs of
selected modulation scheme and
ones or zeros in the input bits. This
code rate, so this block pads ones
will result in:
to reach the frame size.
 Decrease the Peak to average
(2) slot concatenation is used if the
power ratio (PAPR).
data size from the MAC layer is
 Ensure the clock synchronization at
larger than the number of data to be
the receiver as the transition
transmitted in one slot, so it divides
 between bit values helps the
receiver in synchronization.
 If we have long runs of ones the
power of the signal will be
decreases until the threshold and
hence error happened due to Gibbs
phenomena.
This can be achieved by:
The randomization process is
carried out using pseudo random
binary generator (PRBG), as the output
of PRBG is used as the input to an
XOR Gate and the second input is the
block of data to be transmitted. Only
source bits are randomized .Elements
that are not a part of the source data,
such as framing elements and pilot
symbols shall not be randomized.The
LFSR shall be preset at the beginning
of each frame to the value
100101010000000 and shall be
clocked once per processed bit.
The Derandomizer It has the
same construction of the Randomizer,
as the data has a XOR operation with
the output of PRPG that has a linear
feedback shift register (LFSR) has the
same seed value of the Randomizer
used at the Transmitter
(5) Puncturing: In order to achieve
(4) Channel Coding:
The OFDMA PHY supports
 Mandatory tail-biting
(6) Interleaving: The interleaver is
Convolutional Coding, The
convolutional encoder uses a
constituent encoder with a
constraintlength 7 and a native
code rate 1/2 The 6 bits from
the end of the data block are
appended to the beginning, to
be used as flush bits. These
appended bits flush out the bits
left in the encoder by the
previous FEC block. The first
12 parity bits that are generated
by the convolutional encoder
which depend on the 6 bits left
in the encoder by the previous
FEC block are discarded
 and four optional coding
schemes: Zero Tailing
Convolutional code,
Convolutional Turbo
code(CTC) along with H-ARQ,
and Block Turbo code(BTC)
and low density parity check
(LDPC) codes
 The most popular optional
channel coding scheme is
(CTC) WiMAX uses duobinary
turbo codes with a constituent
recursive encoder of constraint
length 4. In duo binary turbo
codes two consecutive bits
from the uncoded bit sequence
are sent to the encoder
simultaneously, have been
defined in WIMAX as optional
channel coding schemes but are
unlikely to be implemented in
fixed or mobile WiMAX.
code rates higher than 1/2, the
output of the encoder is punctured,
using a specified puncturing
pattern
defined by a two step permutation:
  The first step ensures that the further multiplied by a
adjacent coded bits are mapped pseudorandom unitary number to
onto nonadjacent subcarriers, provide additional layer 1
which provides frequency encryption. Preamble and
diversity and improves the midamble symbols are further
performance of the decoder. scaled by 2 2 which allowsboost
 The second step ensures that in the power and allows for more
adjacent bits are alternately accurate synchronization and
mapped to less and more various parameter estimations,
significant bits of the such as channel response and noise
modulation constellation, thus variance.
avoiding long runs of lowly (8) OFDMA:
reliable bits., The interleaver (i) OFDM Symbol Structure
indices are determined using The flexibility of the WiMAX
following equations PHY layer allows one to make an
optimum choice of various PHY
layer parameters, such as cyclic
prefix length, number of
subcarriers, subcarrier separation,
(7) Symbol Mapping: Mobile and preamble interval, such that the
WiMAX supports QPSK, 16QAM performance degradation owing to
ICI and ISI (intersymbol
and 64QAM in DL, but In the UL,
interference) is minimal without
64QAM is optional in gray coded compromising the performance.
scheme. Each modulation The four primitive parameters that
constellation is scaled such that the describe an OFDM symbol, and
average transmitted power is unity, their respective values in IEEE
assuming that all symbols are 802.16e-2005, are shown in Table
2.
equally likely. The symbols are

Table 1 Primitive Parameters for OFDM Symbol

The OFDMA symbol structure consists 1. Data subcarriers are used for
of three types of sub-carriers: carrying data symbols.
2. Pilot subcarriers are used for
carrying pilot symbols. The pilot
symbols are known a priori and can be
used for channel estimation and
channel tracking.
3. Null subcarriers have no power
allocated to them, including the DC
subcarrier and the guard subcarriers
toward the edge. The DC subcarrier is
not modulated, to prevent any
saturation effects or excess power draw
(ii) Scalable OFDMA
The IEEE 802.16e Wireless
MAN OFDMA mode is based on the
concept of scalable OFDMA (S-
OFDMA). S-OFDMA supports a wide
range of bandwidths to flexibly address
the need for various spectrum
allocation and usage model
requirements. The scalability is
supported by adjusting the FFT size
while fixing the sub-carrier frequency
Table2 OFDMA Scalability Parameters
at the amplifier. No power is allocated
to the guard subcarrier toward the edge
of the spectrum in order to fit the
spectrum, of the OFDM symbol within
the allocated bandwidth and thus
reduce the interference between
adjacent channels.
The power in the pilot subcarriers, as
shown here, is boosted by 2.5 dB,
allowing reliable channel tracking even
at low-SNR conditions.
spacing at 10.94 kHz. Since the
resource unit sub-carrier bandwidth
and symbol duration is fixed, the
impact to higher layers is minimal
when scaling the bandwidth. The
system bandwidths for the initial
planned profiles being developed by
the WiMAX Forum Technical
Working Group for Release-1 are 5
and 10 MHz.
(9) Subchannelization & subcarrier
permutation: In order to create the
OFDM symbol in the frequency
domain, the modulated symbols are
mapped on to the subchannels that
have been allocated for the
transmission of the data block.
A subchannel is a logical
collection of subcarriers. The
number and exact distribution of
the subcarriers that constitute a
subchannel depend on the
subcarrier permutation mode. The
number of subchannels allocated
for transmitting a data block
depends on various parameters,
such as the size of the data block,
the modulation format, and the
coding rate. In the time and
frequency domains, the contiguous
set of subchannels allocated to a
single user—or a group of users, in
case of multicast—is referred to as
the data region of the user(s) and is
always transmitted using the same
burst profile. A burst profile refers
to the combination of the chosen
modulation format, code rate, and
type of FEC.
Table3 Parameters of DL FUSC Permutation
Four subcarrier permutation are
applied:
 FUSC: Each slot is 48 subcarriers
by one OFDM symbol.
 Downlink PUSC: Each slot is 24
subcarriers by two OFDM
symbols.
 Uplink PUSC and TUSC: Each slot
is 16 subcarriers by three OFDM
symbols.
 Band AMC: Each slot is 8, 16, or
24 subcarriers by 6, 3, or 2 OFDM
symbols.
(i) DL Full Usage of Subcarriers
 All data subcarriers are used to
create various subchannels.
 Each subchannel is made up of 48
data subcarriers.
 The pilot subcarriers are allocated
first then the data subcarriers are
mapped using permutation scheme.
 Set of pilot subcarriers is divided
into 2 constant sets and 2 variable
sets.
 Variable set allows receiver to
estimate channel response across
the entire frequency band.
 When transmit diversity of 2, for
example, is used, each antenna uses
half of number of pilots.
(ii) Downlink Partial Usage of
Subcarriers
 All subcarriers are divided into 6
groups.
 All subcarriers (except null
subcarriers) are arranged into
clusters.
 Cluster = 14 adjacent subcarriers
×2 OFDM symbols.
 Cluster = 24 data subcarriers + 4
pilot subcarriers.
 The clusters are then renumbered.
 The clusters are then divided into 6
groups.
 A subchannel is formed using 2
clusters from the same group.

(iii) Uplink Partial Usage of  Subchannel = 6 tiles from a single

Subcarriers
 Subcarriers are divided into tiles.
 Tile = 4 subcarriers ×3 OFDM
symbols.
 Subcarrier = 8 data subcarriers + 4
pilot subcarriers.
 Tiles are renumbered and divided
into 6 groups.
group
A special case from the UL PUSC
is Uplink Optional Partial Usage of
Subcarriers (OPUSC) where:
 Tile = 3 subcarriers ×3 OFDM
symbols.
 Subcarrier = 8 data subcarriers + 1
pilot subcarrier.
(iv) Band Adaptive Modulation and
Coding
Unique to the band AMC permutation
mode, all subcarriers constituting a
subchannel are adjacent to each other.
Although frequency diversity is lost to
a large extent with this subcarrier
permutation scheme, exploitation of
multiuser diversity is easier. Multiuser
diversity provides significant
improvement in overall system
capacity and throughput, since a
subchannel at any given time is
allocated to the user with the highest
SNR/capacity in that subchannel. Nine
adjacent subcarriers with eight data
subcarriers and one pilot subcarrier are
used to form a bin.
 Four adjacent bins in the frequency
domain constitute a band.
 An AMC subchannel consists of
six contiguous bins from within the
same band.
 An AMC subchannel can consist of
1 bin × 6 consecutive symbols, 2
bins ×3 symbols, or 3 bins ×2
consecutive symbols.
(10) Channel estimation and  𝑟𝑝 𝑡, 𝑘 is the pth received pilot
equalization form an estimate of the subcarrier
amplitude and phase shift caused by  𝑠𝑝 𝑡, 𝑘 is the pth transmitted pilot
the wireless channel from the available
subcarrier
pilot information. The equalization
removes the effect of the wireless
channel and allows subsequent symbol Subsequently, frequency domain linear
interpolation is performed to calculate
demodulation.
channel estimates using the following
equations:
In WiMAX the reference 1
design estimates the channel frequency ℎ12 = ℎ14 − ℎ11 + ℎ11
response using linear interpolation in 3
2
time and frequency on a tile-by-tile ,ℎ13 = ℎ14 − ℎ11 + ℎ11
3
1
basis for each subchannel. ℎ32 = ℎ34 − ℎ31 + ℎ31 ,
3

The pilot structure is also 2

ℎ32 = ℎ − ℎ31 + ℎ31
outlined by Fig (6.31). In the first and 3 34
third OFDMA symbol, the outer
Finally, time domain linear
carriers of each tile are pilot
subcarriers, and so it is possible to interpolation is achieved as follows:
make an estimate of the channel
response at these frequencies by 1
comparison with the known reference ℎ21 = ℎ + ℎ31
3 11
pilot subcarrier. The frequency 1
,ℎ22 = ℎ12 + ℎ32
response of the two inner subcarriers 3
1
may be estimated by linear ℎ21 = ℎ13 + ℎ33 ,
3
interpolation in the frequency domain.
1
ℎ22 = ℎ + ℎ34
3 14
When all of the channel estimates
have been formed,a single-tap zero
forcing equalizer removes the channel
distortion by dividing the received
signal by the estimated channel
frequency response. Only a single-tap
equalizer is required, as the time
dispersion of the channel has been
When the data and pilot information removed by the use of OFDM and the
has been assembled as shown in Fig addition of a cyclic prefix.
(6.31), it is possible to calculate (11) Advanced and Multiple antenna
ℎ11 , ℎ14 , ℎ31 , ℎ34 using the equation support: there several advanced
𝑟𝑝 (𝑡, 𝑘) multiple antenna techniques supported
ℎ𝑝 𝑡, 𝑘 = in the IEEE 802.16 standard including
𝑠𝑝 (𝑡, 𝑘)
adaptive antenna systems (AAS), space
for the tile t of OFDMA symbol k time coding(STC), multiple input
where: multiple output (MIMO) to provide
significant improvement in the overall
system capacity and spectral efficiency
of the network
There are 2 modes:
(1) open-loop mode the transmitter
does not know the CSI
(2) closed-loop mode, the
transmitter knows the CSI,
either due to channel
reciprocity, in case of TDD, or
to explicit feedback from the
receiver, in the case of FDD.
(a) Open loop mode:
(1) Space time coding(Alamouti
2×2)
For 2x2 Alamouti case, we have two
transmit antennas, Ant0 and Ant1. At a
To decode, the combiner builds the
signals for S0, S1
ŝ0 = (𝛼02 + 𝛼12 + 𝛼22 + 𝛼32 − 1)𝑠0
+ ℎ0∗ 𝑛0 + ℎ1 𝑛1∗ + ℎ2∗ 𝑛2
+ ℎ3 𝑛3∗
given time instant, t, the transmitted
sympols are S0, S1 respectively. At
instant t+T, where T is the sympol
duration, the transmitted signals are –
S1*, S0* . The received signals are as
follow:
𝑟0 = ℎ0 𝑆0 + ℎ1 𝑆1 + 𝑛0
𝑟1 = −ℎ0 𝑆1∗ + ℎ1 𝑆0∗ + 𝑛1
𝑟2 = ℎ2 𝑆0 + ℎ3 𝑆1 + 𝑛2
𝑟3 = −ℎ2 𝑆1∗ + ℎ3 𝑆0∗ + 𝑛3
where r0 is the received signal at Ant0
at time t, r1 is the received signal at
Ant0 at time t+T, r2 is the received
signal at Ant1 at time t, r3 is the
received signal at Ant1 at time t+T.
ŝ1 = (𝛼02 + 𝛼12 + 𝛼22 + 𝛼32 − 1)𝑠1
− ℎ0∗ 𝑛1 + ℎ1 𝑛0∗ − ℎ2∗ 𝑛3
+ ℎ3 𝑛2∗
Then a Maximum Likelihood detector
searches for Si that minimizes:
2
(𝛼02 + 𝛼12 + 𝛼22 + 𝛼32 − 1) 𝑠0,1 +
𝑑 2 (ŝ0,1 , 𝑠𝑖 ) for both S0, S1.

(1) Spatial multiplexing (SM)
Multiplex a data stream into several
branches and transmit via several
independent channels overlapping in
time and frequency.
SM Transmission (using V-BLAST
algorithm)
We consider a V-BLAST system with
2 transmit antennas and 2 receive
antennas.
At the transmitter, bit stream is
modulated then demultiplexed into 2
substreams, and each substream is sent
to its respective transmit antennas.
At the receiver, after estimating the
channel parametrs, the received signal
and and channel parameters are sent to
V-BLAST signal processing decoder,
which performs ordered successive
cancellation, taking the following
steps:
Ordering: selects the data stream
with the highest signal to interference
ratio
(b) Closed loop mode:
The various transmit diversity and
spatial-multiplexing schemes of IEEE
802.16 described in the previous
section do not require the transmitter to
know the CSI for the receiver of
interest. MIMO and diversity schemes
can benefit significantly if the CSI is
Nulling: remove the effect of other
streams by multipling the received
signal by zeroing weights
Slicing: quantize the output to get
the received symbol.
(2) Frequency-Hopping Diversity
Code
WiMAX also defines an optional
transmit diversity mode, known as the
frequency-hopping diversity code
(FHDC), using two antennas in which
the encoding is done in the space and
frequency domain, as shown in Figure
8 rather than the space and time
domain. In FHDC, the first antenna
transmits the OFDM symbols without
any encoding, much like a single-
antenna transmission, and the second
antenna transmits the OFDM symbol
by encoding it over two consecutive
subchannels, using the 2 × 2 Alamouti
encoding matrix
known at the transmitter. CSI
information at the transmitter can be
used to select the appropriate MIMO
mode number of transmit antennas,
number of simultaneous streams, and
space/time encoding matrix as well as
to calculate an optimum precoding
matrix that maximizes system capacity.
The CSI can be known at the
transmitter due to channel reciprocity,
in the case of TDD, or by having a
feedback channel, in the case of FDD.
The uplink bandwidth required to
provide the full CSI to the transmitter
the MIMO channel matrix for each
subcarrier in a multiuser FDD MIMO-
OFDM system is too large and thus
impractical for a closed-loop FDD
MIMO system. For practical systems,
it is possible only to send some form of
quantized information in the uplink.
The framework for closed-loop MIMO
in IEEE 802.16, as shown in consists
.
Closed-loop MIMO framework in
IEEE 802.16In order to determine the
appropriate amplitude and phases of
the various weights, the transmitter
requires some feedback from the MS.
In the case of closed-loop MIMO, the
feedback falls broadly into two
categories: long-term feedback and
short-term feedback. The long-term
feedback provides information related
to the maximum number of parallel
streams: the rank of the precoding
matrix to be used for DL
transmissions. The short-term feedback
provides information about the
precoding matrix weights to be used.
The IEEE 802.16 standard defines the
following five mechanisms so that the
BS can estimate the optimum
precoding matrix for closed-loop
MIMO operations:
of a space/time encoding stage
identical to an open-loop system and a
MIMO precoding stage. The MIMO
precoding matrix in general is a
complex matrix, with the number of
rows equal to the number of transmit
antennas and the number of columns
equal to the output of the space/time
encoding block. The linear precoding
matrix spatially mixes the various
parallel streams among the various
antennas, with appropriate amplitude
and phase adjustment
1. Antenna selection. The MS
indicates to the BS which
transmit antenna(s) should be
used for transmission in order
to maximize the channel
capacity and/or improve the
link reliability.
2. Antenna grouping. The MS
indicates to the BS the
optimum permutation of the
order of the various antennas to
be used with the current
space/time encoding matrix.
3. Codebook based feedback.
The MS indicates to the BS the
optimum precoding matrix to
be used, based on the entries of
a predefined codebook.
4. Quantized channel feedback.
The MS quantizes the MIMO
channel and sends this
information to the BS, using
the MIMO_FEEDBACK
 message. The BS can use the
quantized MIMO channel to
calculate an optimum
precoding matrix.
5. Channel sounding. The BS
obtains exact information about
the CSI of the MS by using a
dedicated and predetermined
signal intended for channel
sounding.
(c) AAS support in IEEE Std 802.16
Through the AAS options, the IEEE
802.16 standard supports the use of
smart antennas to perform beam
forming. Beam forming can effectively
create a narrower signal beam,
resulting in increased gain and,
therefore, higher range. This in turn
increases capacity by increasing the
range at which a particular PHY burst
profile can be received. AAS also
allows for the suppression of noise
sources, improving the SNR at the
receiver, and discrimination on the
AoD allows energy to be concentrated
in the direction of the intended
recipient, enabling large cell ranges. In
addition, nulls can be steered in
particular directions, enhancing the
interference resistance of the system.
Drawbacks of these approaches
include the increased system
complexity and the inability to
broadcast messages, reducing the
spectral efficiency due to repetition of
broadcast MAC messages to the
various recipients.
(12) Mobile WiMAX TDD Frame
Structure: The 802.16e PHY supports
TDD and Full and Half-Duplex FDD
operation, however the initial release
of Mobile WiMAX certification
profiles will only include TDD. With
ongoing releases, FDD profiles will be
considered by the WiMAX Forum to
address specific market opportunities
where local spectrum regulatory
requirements either prohibit TDD or
are more suitable for FDD
deployments.
To counter interference issues,
TDD does require system-wide
synchronization; and TDD is the
preferred duplexing mode for the
following reasons:
 TDD enables adjustment of the
downlink/uplink ratio to efficiently
support asymmetric
downlink/uplink traffic, while with
FDD, downlink and uplink always
have fixed and generally, equal DL
and UL bandwidths.
 TDD assures channel reciprocity
for better support of link
adaptation, MIMO and other closed
loop advanced antenna
technologies.
 Unlike FDD, which requires a pair
of channels, TDD only requires a
single channel or both downlink
and uplink providing greater
flexibility for adaptation to varied
global spectrum allocations.
 Transceiver designs for TDD
implementations are less complex
and therefore less expensive.
BASICS OF OFDMA FRAME
STRUCTURE:
There are three types of OFDMA
subcarriers:
1. Data subcarriers for data
transmission.
2. Pilot subcarriers for various
estimation and synchronization
purposes.
3. Null subcarriers for no transmission
at all, used for guard bands and DC
carriers.
 Active subcarriers are divided into
subsets of subcarriers called
subchannels. The subcarriers forming
one subchannel may be, but need not
be, adjacent. The pilot allocation is
performed differently in different
subcarrier allocation modes.
Fig illustrates the OFDMA frame
structure for a Time Division Duplex
The relevant information about the
starting position and the duration of the
various zones being used in a UL and
DL subframe is provided by control
messages in the beginning of each DL
subframe.
In a frame, the following control
information is used to ensure optimal
system operation:
 Preamble: The preamble is the
first OFDM symbol of the frame.
The preamble can be used for a
variety of PHY layer procedures,
such as time and frequency
synchronization, initial channel
(TDD) implementation. Each frame is
divided into DL and UL sub-frames
separated by Transmit/Receive and
Receive/Transmit Transition Gaps
(TTG and RTG, respectively) to
prevent DL and UL transmission
collisions. The downlink-to-uplink-
subframe ratio may be varied from 3:1
to 1:1 to support different traffic
profiles.
estimation, and noise and interference
estimation. To create the preamble in
frequency domain, BPSK modulation
is used.
 Frame Control Header (FCH):
The FCH follows the preamble. It
provides the frame configuration
information such as MAP
message length and the
modulation and coding scheme
and usable sub-channels.
 DL-MAP and UL-MAP: The
DL-MAP and UL-MAP provide
subchannel allocation and
Multiple users data regions within
the frame and other control
 information for the DL and UL
sub-frames respectively.
Since MAP contains critical
information that needs to reach all
users, it is often sent over a very
reliable link, such as BPSK with rate
1/2 coding and repetition coding.
The BS also transmits the downlink
channel descriptor (DCD) and the
uplink channel descriptor (UCD)
following the UL-MAP message,
which contains additional control
information pertaining to the
description of channel structure and the
various burst profiles that are allowed
within the given BS.
In order to conserve resources, the
DCD and the UCD are not transmitted
every DL frame.
 UL Ranging: The UL ranging
sub-channel is allocated for
mobile stations (MS) to perform
2- 3GPP LTE PHY layer:
Downlink Physical layer:
closed-loop time, frequency, and
power adjustment as well as
bandwidth requests.
 UL CQICH: The UL CQICH
channel is allocated for the MS to
feedback channel state
information.
 UL ACK: The UL ACK is
allocated for the MS to feedback
DL HARQ ( Hybrid Automatic
Repeat Request ) acknowledge.
Burst Regions is used as Data
regions from different users each
burst has the same modulation
and code rate for all users that are
included in this burst.
 TTG & RTG : Transmit/Receive
and Receive/Transmit Transition
Gaps .
Frame duration is almost 5 ms (it
is variable from 2 ms to 20 ms).
Each frame has 47 OFDM
symbols each symbol duration is 102.9
µs
(1) CRC insertion:
In the first step of the transport-
channel processing, a 24-bit CRC is
calculatedfor and appended to each
transport block. The CRC allows for
receiverside detection of errors in the
decoded transport block. The
corresponding error indication is then,
for example, used by the downlink
hybrid-ARQ protocol as a trigger for
requesting retransmissions.
(2) Code-block segmentation and
per-code-block CRC insertion: The
LTE Turbo-coder internal interleaver
is only defined for a limited number of
code-block sizes with a maximum
block size of 6144 bits. In case the
transport block, including the
transport-block CRC, exceeds this
maximum code-block size, code-block
segmentation as illustrated in fig. is
applied before Turbo coding. Code-
block segmentation implies that the
transport block is segmented into
smaller code blocks that match the set
of code-block sizes defined for the
(3) Turbo coding
The overall structure of the LTE Turbo
encoding is illustrated in Figure The
Turbo encoding reuses the two
WCDMA/HSPA rate-1/2, eight-state
constituent encoders, implying an
overall code rate of 1/3. However, the
WCDMA/ HSPA Turbo encoder
internal interleaver has, for LTE, been
replaced by QPPbased17 interleaving ,
the QPP interleaver provides a
mapping from the input (non-
Turbo coder. In order to ensure that the
size of each code block is matched to
the set of available code-block sizes,
filler bits may have to be inserted at
the head of the first code block. Note
that filler bits may be needed also if
there is no actual codeblock
segmentation, that is if the transport-
block size does not exceed the
maximum code-block size. 15 As can
be seen in Figure 16.27 code-block
segmentation also implies that an
additional (24 bits) CRC is calculated
for and appended to each code block.
16 Having a CRC per code block
allows for early detection of correctly
decoded code blocks and
corresponding early termination of the
iterative decoding of that code block.
This can be used to reduce the terminal
processing effort and power
consumption. It should be noted that,
in case of no code-block segmentation,
that is in case of a single code block,
no additional code-block CRC is
applied
interleaved) bits to the output
(interleaved) bits according to the
function:
where i is the index of the bit at the
output of the interleaver, c(i) is the
index of the same bit at the input of the
interleaver, and K is the code-
block/interleaver size. The values of
the parameters f1 and f2 depend on the
code-block size K . The LTE
specification lists all supported code-
block sizes, ranging from a minimum
(4) Rate-matching and physical-
layer hybrid-ARQ functionality
The task of the rate-matching and
physical-layer hybrid-ARQ
functionality is to extract, from the
blocks of code bits delivered by the
channel encoder, the exact set of bits to
be transmitted within a given TTI. As
illustrated in Figure 16.30 , the outputs
of the Turbo encoder (systematic
bits,first parity bits, and second parity
bits) are first separately interleaved.
The interleaved bits are then inserted
into what can be described as a circular
of 40 bits to a maximum of 6144 bits,
together with the associated values for
the parameters f1 and f2 .
buffer with the systematic bits inserted
first, followed by alternating insertion
of the first and second parity bits. The
bit selection then extracts consecutive
bits from the circular buffer to the
extent that fits into the assigned
resource. The set of bits to extract
depends on the redundancy version
corresponding to different starting
points for the extraction of coded bits
from the circular buffer. As can be
seen, there are four different
alternatives for the redundancy
version.
(5) Bit-level scrambling
LTE downlink scrambling implies that
the block of code bits delivered by the
hybrid-ARQ functionality is multiplied
( exclusive-or operation) by a bit-level
scrambling sequence . In general,
scrambling of the coded data helps to
ensure that the receiver-side decoding
can fully utilize the processing gain
provided by the channel code. Without
downlink scrambling, the channel
decoder at the mobile terminal could,
at least in principle, be equally
matched to an interfering signal as to
the target signal, thus not being able to
properly suppress the interference. By
applying different scrambling
sequences for neighbor cells, the
interfering signal(s) after descrambling
are randomized, ensuring full
utilization of the processing gain
provided by the channel code
(6) modulation
The downlink data modulation
transforms the block of scrambled bits
to a corresponding block of complex
modulation symbols. The set of
modulation schemes supported for the
LTE downlink includes QPSK,
16QAM, and 64QAM, corresponding
to two, four, and six bits per
modulation symbol, respectively. All
these modulation schemes are
applicable to the DL-SCH, PCH, and
MCH transport channels. As will be
described in Chapter 18, only QPSK
modulation can be applied to the BCH
transport channel.
(7) Antenna mapping
The Antenna Mapping jointly
processes the modulation symbols
corresponding to, in the general case,
two transport blocks, and maps the
result to the different antenna ports
(8) Resource-block mapping
The resource-block mapping maps the
symbols to be transmitted on each
antenna port to the resource elements
of the set of resource blocks assigned
by the MAC scheduler for
transmission of the transport block(s)
to the terminal. Each resource block
consists of 84 resource elements (12
subcarriers during 7 OFDM symbols)
when deciding what set of resource
blocks to use for transmission to a
specific terminal, the network may
take the downlink channel conditions
in both the time and frequency domain
into account. Such time/
frequency-domain channel-dependent
scheduling, taking channel variations
However, in some cases downlink
channel-dependent scheduling is not
suitable an alternative means to handle
radio-channel frequency selectivity is
to achieve frequency diversity by
distributing a downlink transmission in
the frequency domain. In order to
provide the possibility for distributed
resource-block allocation in case of
resource allocation type 2, as well as to
allow for distributing the transmission
of a single resource-block pair in the
frequency domain, the notion of a
Virtual Resource Block (VRB) has
been introduced for LTE. What is
being provided in the resource
allocation is the resource allocation in
terms of VRB pairs. The key to
distributed transmission then lies in the
mapping from VRB pairs to Physical
Resource Block (PRB) pairs, that is, to
the actual physical resource used for
transmission. The LTE specification
defines two types of VRBs: localized
VRBs and
distributed VRBs.
In case of localized VRBs, there is a
direct mapping from VRB pairs to
PRB pairs as illustrated in Figure.
However, in case of distributed VRBs,
the mapping from VRB pairs to PRB
pairs is more elaborate in the sense that
 Consecutive VRBs are not mapped
to PRBs that are consecutive in the
frequency domain,
 even a single VRB pair is
distributed in the frequency
 domain.The basic principle of
distributed transmission consists of
two steps:
o A mapping from VRB pairs to
PRB pairs such that consecutive
VRB pairs are not mapped to
frequency-consecutive PRB
pairs This provides frequency
diversity between consecutive
VRB pairs. The spreading in the
frequency domain is done by
means of a block-based ‗
interleaver ‘ operating on
resource-block pairs.
o A split of each resource-block
pair such that the two resource
blocks of the resource-block pair
are transmitted with a certain
frequency gap in between
(second step of Figure 16.32 ).
This provides frequency
diversity also for a single VRB
pair. This step can be seen as the
introduction of frequency
hopping on a slot basis.
(9) Multi-antenna transmission
LTE supports the following multi-
antenna transmission schemes or
transmission modes , in addition to
single-antenna transmission:
Closed loop Spatial multiplexing
As described in Chapter 6, spatial
multiplexing implies that multiple
streams or ‗ layers ‘ are transmitted in
parallel, thereby allowing for higher
data rates within a given bandwidth.
LTE spatial multiplexing allows for the
● Transmit diversity
● Closed-loop spatial multiplexing
including codebook-based beam-
forming
● Open-loop spatial multiplexing
Transmit diversity
In case of two antenna ports, LTE
transmit diversity is based on Space
Frequency Block Coding (SFBC). As
can be seen from Figure 16.33 , SFBC
implies that consecutive modulation
symbols 1 are mapped directly on
adjacent subcarriers on the first
antenna port. On the second antenna
port, the swapped and transformed
symbols are transmitted
on the corresponding subcarriers. In
case of four antenna ports, LTE
transmit diversity is based on a
combination of SFBC and Frequency
Shift Transmit Diversity (FSTD). As
can be seen in combined SFBD/FSTD
implies that pairs of modulation
symbols are transmitted by means of
SFBC with transmission alternating
between pairs of antenna ports
(antenna ports 0 and 2 and antenna
ports 1 and 3, respectively).
transmission of a variable number of
layers, up to a maximum of NA layers,
where NA is the number of antenna
ports. The LTE spatial multiplexing
may operate in two different modes:
closed-loop spatial multiplexing and
open-loop spatial multiplexing where
closed-loop spatial multiplexing relies
on more extensive feedback from the
One or two codewords, corresponding
to one or two transport blocks, are
mapped to the NL layers. The number
of NL layers may range from a
minimum of one layer up to a
maximum number of layers equal to
the number of antenna ports After
layer mapping, a set of NL symbols
(one symbol from each layer) is
linearly combined and mapped to the
NA antenna ports. This
combining/mapping can be described
by means of a pre-coder matrix W of
size NA *NL
As LTE supports multi-antenna
transmission using two or four antenna
The structure of large-delay CDD is
illustrated in Figure 16.37 . As can be
seen, the overall pre-coding
functionality can in this case be seen as
a combination of two pre-coder
matrices, a matrix P of size NL×NL
and a matrix W of size NA ×NL . The
matrix P in Figure 16.37 can be
expressed as a product of two matrices
P =U. D , where U is a constant matrix
mobile terminal.
ports, pre-coding matrices are defined
for:
two antenna ports ( NA = 2) and one
and two layers, corresponding to
precoder matrices of size 2×1 and 2×2,
respectively; four antenna ports ( NA =
4) and one, two, three, and four layers,
corresponding to pre-coder matrices of
size 4×1, 4×2, 4×3, and 4×4,
respectively.
Open loop SM
LTE also supports open-loop spatial
multiplexing , also sometimes referred
to as large-delay CDD
of size NL×NL and D ( i ) is matrix of
size NL×NL that varies between
subcarriers. As an example, the
matrices U and D ( i ) for the case of
two layers ( NL ×2) are given by:
The basic idea with the matrix P , that
is the ‗ large-delay CDD ‘ part of the
open-loop spatial multiplexing, is to
average out any differences in the
channel conditions as seen by the
different layers.
General beam-forming
As described above, closed-loop
spatial multiplexing includes beam-
forming as a special case when the
number of layers NL equals one. This
kind of beamforming can be referred to
as codebook-based beam-forming.
SC-FDMA Design in LTE
Transmit Processing for LTE
Although the frequency-domain
generation of SC-FDMA (DFT-S-
OFDM) is functionally equivalent to
the time-domain SC-FDMA signal
generation, each technique requires a
slightly different parameterization for
efficient signal generation. The pulse-
shaping filter used in the time domain
SC-FDMA generation approach in
practice has a non-zero excess
bandwidth, resulting in bandwidth
efficiency which is smaller than that
achievable with the frequency domain
method with its inherent ‗sinc‘ (zero
excess bandwidth) pulse-shaping filter
which arises from the zero padding and
IFFT operation.
For example, for a 5 MHz operating
bandwidth, physical layer parameters
optimized for time-domain
implementation might have a sampling
rate of 4.096 Mps (256 subcarriers
with 16 kHz subcarrier spacing)
resulting in bandwidth efficiency of
82%. An equivalent set of parameters
optimized for the frequency-domain
generation can support a bandwidth
efficiency of 90% (with 300 occupied
subcarriers and 15 kHz subcarrier
spacing). Thus, with frequency-domain
processing, a 10% increase in
bandwidth efficiency can be achieved,
allowing higher data rates.
The non-zero excess bandwidth pulse-
shaping filter in the time-domain
generation also requires ramp-up and
ramp-down times of 3–4 samples
duration, while for DFT-S-OFDM
there is no explicit pulse-shaping filter,
resulting in a much shorter ramp time
similar to OFDM. However, the pulse-
shaping filter in the time-domain
generation does provide the benefit of
reduced CM by approximately 0.25–
0.5 dB compared to DFT-S-OFDM, as
shown in Fig. ?. Thus there is a trade-
off between bandwidth efficiency and
CM/PAPR reduction between the time-
and frequency-domain SC-FDMA
generation methods.
Frequency-domain signal generation
for the LTE uplink has a further benefit
in that it allows a very similar
parameterization to be adopted as for
the OFDM downlink, including the
same subcarrier spacing, number of
occupied subcarriers in a given
bandwidth, and CP lengths. This
provides maximal commonality
between uplink and downlink,
including for example the same clock
frequency.
For these reasons, the SC-FDMA
parameters chosen for the LTE uplink
have been optimized under the
assumption of frequency-domain DFT-
S-OFDM signal generation.
An important feature of the LTE SC-
FDMA parameterization is that the
numbers of subcarriers which can be
allocated to a UE for transmission are
restricted such that the DFT size in
LTE can be constructed from multiples
of 2, 3 and/or 5. This enables efficient,
low-complexity mixed-radix FFT
implementations.
SC-FDMA Parameters for LTE
The same basic transmission resource
structure is used for the uplink as for
the downlink: a 10 ms radio frame is
divided into ten 1 ms subframes each
consisting of two 0.5 ms slots. As LTE
SC-FDMA is based on the same
fundamental processing as OFDM, it
uses the same 15 kHz subcarrier
spacing as the downlink. The uplink
transmission resources are also defined
in the frequency domain (i.e. before
the IFFT), with the smallest unit of
resource being a Resource Element
(RE), consisting of one SC-FDMA
data block length on one subcarrier. As
Table 6. LTE uplink SC-FDMA physical layer parameters
Two CP durations are supported – a
normal CP of duration 4.69 μs and an
extended CP of 16.67 μs, as in the
downlink. The extended CP is
beneficial for deployments with large
channel delay-spread characteristics,
and for large cells.
The 1 ms subframe allows a 1 ms
scheduling interval (or Transmission
Time Interval (TTI)), as for the
downlink, to enable low latency.
However, one difference from the
downlink is that the uplink coverage is
more likely to be limited by the
maximum transmission power of the
UE. In some situations, this may mean
that a single Voice-over-IP (VoIP)
packet, for example, cannot be
transmitted in a 1 ms subframe with an
acceptable error rate. One solution to
this is to segment the VoIP packet at
higher layers to allow it to be
transmitted over several subframes.
However, such segmentation results in
additional signaling overhead for each
in the downlink, a Resource Block
(RB) comprises 12 REs in the
frequency domain for a duration of 1
slot, as detailed in Section 6.2. The
LTE uplink SCFDMA physical layer
parameters for Frequency Division
Duplex (FDD) and Time Division
Duplex (TDD) deployments are
detailed in Table 6.
segment (including resource allocation
signaling and Hybrid ARQ
acknowledgement signaling). A more
efficient technique for improving
uplink VoIP coverage at the cell edge
is to use so-called TTI bundling, where
a single transport block from the MAC
layer is transmitted repeatedly in
multiple consecutive subframes, with
only one set of signaling messages for
the whole transmission. The LTE
uplink allows groups of 4 TTIs to be
‗bundled‘ in this way, in addition to
the normal 1 ms TTI.
In practice in LTE, all the uplink data
transmissions are localized, using
contiguous blocks of subcarriers. This
simplifies the transmission scheme,
and enables the same RB structure to
be used as in the downlink. Frequency-
diversity can still be exploited by
means of frequency hopping, which
can occur both within one subframe (at
the boundary between the two slots)
and between subframes. In the case of
frequency hopping within a subframe,
the channel coding spans the two
transmission frequencies, and therefore
the frequency diversity gain is
maximized through the channel
decoding process. The only instance of
distributed transmission in the LTE
uplink (using an IFDMA-like
structure) is for the ‗Sounding
Reference Signals‘ (SRSs) which are
transmitted to enable the eNodeB to
perform uplink frequency-selective
scheduling.
Like the downlink, the LTE uplink
supports scalable system bandwidths
from approximately 1.4 MHz up to 20
MHz with the same subcarrier spacing
Table 7. LTE Uplink SC-FDMA parametrization for selected carrier bandwidths.
d.c. Subcarrier in SC-FDMA
Direct conversion transmitters and
receivers can introduce distortion at the
carrier frequency (zero frequency or
d.c. in baseband), for example arising
from local oscillator leakage.
In this section we explore three
possible configurations of the d.c.
subcarrier which were considered in
the design of the LTE uplink in order
to minimize d.c. distortion effects on
the packet error rate and the
CM/PAPR.
• Option 1. The d.c. subcarrier
distortion region falls in the middle of
a RB, such that one of the RBs
includes information modulated at d.c.
(e.g. 600 subcarriers for 10MHz
operation bandwidth with the d.c.
subcarrier being one of the subcarriers
for RB 26).
and symbol duration for all
bandwidths. The uplink scaling for the
bandwidths supported in the first
release of LTE is shown in Table 7.
Note that the sampling rates resulting
from the indicated FFT sizes are
designed to be small rational multiples
of the UMTS 3.84 MHz chip rate, for
ease of implementation in a multimode
UE.
Note that in the OFDM downlink
parameter specification, the d.c.
subcarrier is unused. In contrast, no
unused d.c. subcarrier is possible for
SC-FDMA as it can affect the low
CM/PAPR property of the transmit
signal.
The performance of the RB containing
the d.c. subcarrier would be reduced at
the receiver; this effect would be most
noticeable with a narrow bandwidth
transmission consisting of a single RB.
• Option 2. One more subcarrier is
configured than is required for the
number of RBs (e.g. 601 subcarriers
for the 10 MHz bandwidth case). This
option would be beneficial for the case
of a system bandwidth with an even
number of RBs where the additional
subcarrier would be unused and
correspond to the d.c. subcarrier
located between RBs allocated to
different UEs.
• Option 3. The subcarriers are
frequency-shifted by half a subcarrier
spacing (±7.5 kHz), resulting in an
offset of 7.5 kHz for subcarriers
relative to d.c. Thus two subcarriers
straddle the d.c. location. This is the and odd numbers of RBs across the
option used in LTE, and is illustrated system bandwidth.
in Fig. 5 for deployments with even

IV. System Architecture

 Specifying the PHY and MAC of the
radio link alone is not sufficient to build an
interoperable broadband wireless network.
Rather, the network architecture framework
that deals with the end-to-end service
aspects is needed.
a- WiMAX
Fig 9 shows the WiMAX network
reference model (NRM), which is a logical
representation of the network architecture.
The NRM identifies the functional entities in
the architecture and the reference points
between the functional entities over which
Fig.9 Network reference model
1- ASN Functions, Decompositions, and
Profiles
The ASN performs the following functions:
• IEEE 802.16e–based layer 2 connectivity
with the MS
• Network discovery and selection of the
subscriber‘s preferred CSN/NSP
interoperability is achieved. The NRM
divides the end-to-end system into three
logical parts: (1) mobile stations used by the
subscriber to access the work; (2) the access
service network (ASN) which is owned by a
NAP and comprises one or more base
stations and one or more ASN gateways that
form the radio access network; and (3) the
connectivity service network (CSN), which is
owned by an NSP, and provides IP
connectivity and all the IP core network
functions. The subscriber is served from the
CSN belonging to the visited NSP; the home
NSP is where the subscriber belongs.
• AAA proxy: transfer of device, user, and
service credentials to selected NSP AAA
and temporary storage of user‘s profiles
• Relay functionality for establishing IP
connectivity between the MS and the CSN
• Radio resource management (RRM) and
allocation based on the QoS policy and/or
request from the NSP or the ASP
• Mobility-related functions, such as
handover, location management, and paging
within the ASN, including support for
mobile IP with foreign-agent functionality
The ASN may be decomposed into
one or more base stations (BSs) and one or
more ASN Gateways (ASN-GW) as shown
in Fig.9. The WiMAX NRM defines multiple
profiles for the ASN, each calling for a
different decomposition of functions within
the ASN.
The BS is defined as representing
one sector with one frequency assignment
implementing the IEEE 802.16e interface to
the MS. Additional functions handled by the
BS in both profiles include scheduling for
the uplink and the downlink, traffic
classification, and service flow management
(SFM) by acting as the QoS policy
enforcement point (PEP) for traffic via the
air interface, providing terminal activity
(active, idle) status, providing DHCP proxy
functionality, relaying authentication
messages between the MS and the ASN-
GW, reception and delivery of the traffic
encryption key (TEK) and the key
encryption key (KEK) to the MS, serving as
RSVP proxy for session management, and
managing multicast group association via
Internet Group Management Protocol
(IGMP) proxy. A BS may be connected to
more than one ASN-GW for load balancing
or redundancy purposes.
The ASN-GW provides ASN
location management and paging; acts as a
server for network session and mobility
management; acts as an authenticator and
AAA; provides mobility tunnel
establishment and management with BSs;
acts as a client for session/mobility
management; performs service flow
authorization (SFA), based on the user
profile and QoS policy; provides foreign
agent functionality; and performs routing
(IPv4 and IPv6) to selected CSNs. Table 2.1
lists the split of the various functional
entities within an ASN between the BS and
the ASN-GW, as per the ASN profiles
defined by the WiMAX Forum. It should be
noted that the ASN gateway may optionally
be decomposed into two groups of
functions: decision point (DP) functions and
enforcement point (EP) functions. When
decomposed in such a way, the DP functions
may be shared across multiple ASN
Gateways. Examples of DP functions
include intra-ASN location management and
paging, regional radio resource control and
admission control, network session/mobility
management (server), radio load balancing
for handover decisions, temporary caching
of subscriber profile and encryption keys,
and AAA client/proxy. Examples of EP
functions include mobility tunneling
establishment and management with BSs,
session/mobility management (client), QoS
and policy enforcement, foreign agent, and
routing to selected CSN.
 Table 2.1 Functional Decomposition of the ASN in Various Release 1 Profiles
2- CSN Functions
The CSN provides the following functions:
• IP address allocation to the MS for user
sessions.
• AAA proxy or server for user, device and
services authentication, authorization, and
accounting (AAA).
• Policy and QoS management based on the
SLA/contract with the user. The CSN of the
home NSP distributes the subscriber profile
to the NAP directly or via the visited NSP.
• Subscriber billing and interoperator
settlement.
• Inter-CSN tunneling to support roaming
between NSPs.
• Inter-ASN mobility management and
mobile IP home agent functionality.
• Connectivity infrastructure and policy
control for such services as Internet access,
access to other IP networks, ASPs, location-
based services, peer-to-peer, VPN, IP
multimedia services, law enforcement, and
messaging.
3- Reference Points
The WiMAX NWG defines a
reference point (RP) as a conceptual link
that connects two groups of functions that
reside in different functional entities of the
ASN, CSN, or MS. Reference points are not
necessarily a physical interface, except when
the functional entities on either side of it are
implemented on different physical devices.
Table 2.2 WiMAX Reference Points
4- Network Discovery and Selection
WiMAX networks are required to
support either manual or automatic selection
of the appropriate network, based on user
preference. It is assumed that an MS will
operate in an environment in which multiple
networks are available for it to connect to
Fig.9 shows a number of reference
points defined by the WiMAX NWG. These
reference points are listed in Table 2.2.
and multiple service providers are offering
services over the available networks. To
facilitate such operation, the WiMAX
standard offers a solution for network
discovery and selection. The solution
consists of four procedures:
NAP discovery, NSP discovery, NSP
enumeration and selection, and ASN
attachment.
NAP discovery: This process enables the
MS to discover all available NAPs within a
coverage area. The MS scans and decodes
the DL MAP of ASNs on all detected
channels. The 24-bit value of the ―operator
ID‖ within the base station ID parameter in
DL MAP as defined in IEEE 802.16 serves
as the NAP identifier.
NSP discovery: This process enables the
MS to discover all NSPs that provide service
over a given ASN. The NSPs are identified
by a unique 24-bit NSP identifier, or 32-byte
NAI (network access identifier). The MS
can dynamically discover the NSPs during
initial scan or network entry by listening to
the NSP IDs broadcast by the ASN as part
of the system identity information
advertisement (SII-ADV) MAC
management message. NSP-IDs may also be
transmitted by the BS in response to a
specific request by MS, using an SBC-REQ
message.
Service type PoA IP address scheme (IPv4)
Fixed access Static or dynamic
Nomadic access Dynamic
Mobile access DHCP for P-MIP terminals
MIP based for C-MIP terminals
P-MIP=Proxy-Mobile IP mode.
C-MIP=Client-Mobile IP mode.
Table 2.3 PoA IP address method according to the WiMAX access services and IP version
6- Mobility
The mobility procedures are divided into
two mobility levels:
NSP enumeration and selection: The MS
may make a selection from the list of
available NSPs by using an appropriate
algorithm. NSP selection may be automatic
or manual.
ASN attachment: Once an NSP is selected,
the MS indicates its selection by attaching to
an ASN associated with the selected NSP
and by providing its identity and home NSP
domain in the form of a network access
identifier.
5- IP Address Assignment
The Dynamic Host Control Protocol
(DHCP) is used as the primary mechanism
to allocate a dynamic point-of-attachment
(PoA) IP address to the MS. Alternatively,
the home CSN may allocate IP addresses to
an ASN via AAA, which in turn is delivered
to the MS via DHCP. For nomadic, portable
and mobile access, dynamic allocation from
either the home or the visited CSN is
allowed, depending on roaming agreements
and the user subscription profile and policy.
See table 2.3
PoA IP address scheme (IPv6)
Static or stateful autoconfiguration
Stateful or stateless autoconfiguration
Stateful or stateless authconfiguration
ASN anchored mobility procedures.
This refers to MS mobility where no CoA
address update is needed, also known as
micromobility.
CSN anchored mobility procedures.
The macromobility between the ASN and
CSN is based on mobile IP protocols
running across the R3 interface.
CSN anchored mobility implies that, in the
case of IPv4, the MS changes to a new
anchor FA (Foreign Agent). WiMAX
systems must support at least one of the
following mobile IP schemes:
Proxy-MIP. In this case, the MS is
unaware of CSN mobility management
activities and there is no additional
signalling/overhead over the air to complete
the CSN mobility.
Client MIP (CMIPv4). In this case,
the MIP client in the MS participates in
inter-ASN mobility.
b- LTE
LTE has been designed to support
only packet switched services, It aims to
provide seamless Internet Protocol (IP)
connectivity between User Equipment (UE)
and the Packet Data Network (PDN),
without any disruption to the end users‘
applications during mobility. While the term
‗LTE‘ encompasses the evolution of the
radio access through the Evolved-UTRAN
(E-UTRAN), it is accompanied by an
evolution of the non-radio aspects under the
term ‗System Architecture Evolution‘ (SAE)
which includes the Evolved Packet Core
(EPC) network. Together LTE and SAE
comprise the Evolved Packet System (EPS).
EPS uses the concept of EPS bearers
to route IP traffic from a gateway in the
PDN to the UE. A bearer is an IP packet
flow with a defined Quality of Service
(QoS) between the gateway and the UE.
1- Overall Architectural Overview
EPS provides the user with IP
connectivity to a PDN for accessing the
Internet, as well as for running services such
as Voice over IP (VoIP). This is achieved by
means of several EPS network elements
which have different roles.
Fig. 10 shows the overall network
architecture including the network elements
and the standardized interfaces. At a high
level, the network is comprised of the CN
(EPC) and the access network (E-UTRAN).
While the CN consists of many logical
nodes, the access network is made up of
essentially just one node, the evolved
NodeB (eNodeB), which connects to the
UEs. The EPC and E-UTRAN network
elements are described in more detail below.
a- The Core Network
The CN (called EPC in SAE) is
responsible for the overall control of the UE
and establishment of the bearers. The main
logical nodes of the EPC are:
• PDN Gateway (P-GW);
• Serving Gateway (S-GW);
• Mobility Management Entity (MME).
 Fig. 10 The EPS network elements.
In addition to these nodes, EPC also
includes other logical nodes and functions
such as the Home Subscriber Server (HSS)
and the Policy Control and Charging Rules
Function (PCRF). Since the EPS only
provides a bearer path of a certain QoS,
control of multimedia applications such as
VoIP is provided by the IP Multimedia
Subsystem (IMS) which is considered to be
outside the EPS itself. The logical CN nodes
are shown in Fig. 10 and discussed in more
detail in the following.
• PCRF. provides the QoS
authorization (QoS class identifier and
bitrates) that decides how a certain data flow
will be treated and ensures that this is in
accordance with the user‘s subscription
profile.
• Home Location Register (HLR).
The HLR contains users‘ subscription data
such as the EPS-subscribed QoS profile and
any access restrictions for roaming. It also
holds information about the PDNs to which
the user can connect. In addition the HLR
holds dynamic information such as the
identity of the MME to which the user is
currently attached or registered. The HLR
may also integrate the Authentication Centre
(AuC) which generates the vectors for
authentication and security keys.
• P-GW. The P-GW is responsible
for IP address allocation for the UE, as well
as QoS enforcement and flow-based
charging according to rules from the PCRF.
The P-GW is responsible for the filtering of
downlink user IP packets into the different
QoS based bearers. It also serves as the
mobility anchor for inter-working with non-
3GPP technologies such as CDMA2000 and
WiMAX networks.
• S-GW. All user IP packets are
transferred through the S-GW, which serves
as the local mobility anchor for the data
bearers when the UE moves between
eNodeBs. It also retains the information
about the bearers when the UE is in idle
state (known as ECM-IDLE) and
temporarily buffers downlink data while the
MME initiates paging of the UE to re-
establish the bearers. In addition, the S-GW
performs some administrative functions in
the visited network such as collecting
information for charging (e.g. the volume of
data sent to or received from the user. It also
serves as the mobility anchor for inter-
working with other 3GPP technologies such
as GPRS and UMTS.
•MME. is the control node which
processes the signaling between the UE and
the CN. The protocols running between the
UE and the CN are known as the Non-
Access Stratum (NAS) protocols. The main
functions supported by the MME are
classified as:
Bearer management Functions: This
includes the establishment, maintenance and
release of the bearers.
Connection management Functions: This
includes the establishment of the connection
and security between the network and UE.
NAS control procedures are discussed in
more detail in the following section.
b- Non-Access Stratum (NAS)
Procedures
The NAS procedures, especially the
connection management procedures, are
fundamentally similar to UMTS.
The MME creates a UE context
when a UE is turned on and attaches to the
network. It assigns a unique short temporary
identity termed the SAE-Temporary Mobile
Subscriber Identity (S-TMSI) to the UE
which identifies the UE context in the
MME. This UE context holds user
subscription information downloaded from
the HSS. The local storage of subscription
data in the MME allows faster execution of
procedures such as bearer establishment
since it removes the need to consult the HSS
every time.
To reduce the overhead in the E-
UTRAN and processing in the UE, all UE-
related information in the access network
can be released during long periods of data
inactivity. This state is called EPS
Connection Management IDLE (ECM-
IDLE). The MME retains the UE context
and the information about the established
bearers during these idle periods.
To allow the network to contact an
ECM-IDLE UE, the UE updates the network
as to its new location whenever it moves out
of its current Tracking Area (TA); this
procedure is called a ‗Tracking Area
Update‘. The MME is responsible for
keeping track of the user location while the
UE is in ECM-IDLE.
When there is a need to deliver
downlink data to an ECM-IDLE UE, the
MME sends a paging message to all the
eNodeBs in its current TA, and the eNodeBs
page the UE over the radio interface. On
receipt of a paging message, the UE
performs a service request procedure which
results in moving the UE to ECM-
CONNECTED state. UE-related information
is thereby created in the E-UTRAN, and the
bearers are re-established. The MME is
responsible for the re-establishment of the
radio bearers and updating the UE context in
the eNodeB. This transition between the UE
states is called an idle-to-active transition.
c- The Access Network
The Access Network of LTE, E-
UTRAN, simply consists of a network of
eNodeBs, as illustrated in Fig. 11. For
normal user traffic , there is no centralized
controller in E-UTRAN; hence the E-
UTRAN architecture is said to be flat.
The eNodeBs are normally inter-
connected with each other by means of an
interface known as X2, and to the EPC by
Fig. 11. E-UTRAN architecture.
The E-UTRAN is responsible for all
radio-related functions, which can be
summarized briefly as:
Radio Resource Management. This covers
all functions related to the radio bearers,
such as radio bearer control, radio admission
control, radio mobility control, scheduling
and dynamic allocation of resources to UEs
in both uplink and downlink
Header Compression. This helps to ensure
efficient use of the radio interface by
means of the S1 interface – more
specifically, to the MME by means of the
S1-MME interface and to the S-GW by
means of the S1-U interface. The protocols
which run between the eNodeBs and the UE
are known as the Access Stratum (AS)
protocols.
compressing the IP packet headers which
could otherwise represent a significant
overhead, especially for small packets such
as VoIP.
Security. All data sent over the radio
interface is encrypted
Connectivity to the EPC. This consists of
the signaling towards the MME and the
bearer path towards the S-GW.
 On the network side, all of these
functions reside in the eNodeBs, each of
which can be responsible for managing
multiple cells. Unlike some of the previous
second- and third generation technologies,
LTE integrates the radio controller function
into the eNodeB, thus reducing latency and
improving efficiency. Such distributed
control eliminates the need for a high-
availability, processing-intensive controller,
which in turn has the potential to reduce
costs and avoid ‗single points of failure‘.
One consequence of the lack of a centralized
V. Conclusions
Table 8 below presents the key
elements of a comparison between the
Mobile WiMAX and 3GPP-LTE standards
as they converge to 4G broadband wireless
access systems. The comparison focuses
mainly on the physical layer aspects of the
radio access technology of these two
standards.
The parameters presented in Table 8
show that the Mobile WiMAX and 3GPP-
LTE standards are technically similar.
However, in terms of market perspective the
two standards differ in terms of expected
time to market and legacy. Mobile WiMAX
controller node is that, as the UE moves, the
network must transfer all information related
to a UE, i.e. the UE context, together with
any buffered data, from one eNodeB to
another, mechanisms are therefore needed to
avoid data loss during handover. An
eNodeB may be served by multiple MME/S-
GWs, as is the case for eNodeB#2 in Fig.
11. The set of MME/S-GW nodes which
serves a common area is called an MME/S-
GW pool, and the area covered by such a
pool of MME/S-GWs is called a pool area.
was first to market, whereas LTE has been
only recently standardized.
Following this observation, we may
conclude that due to timeline benefits new
service providers as well as existing cable
and DSL providers wishing to offer mobile
services are likely to select Mobile WiMAX
as their technology for mobile broadband
access. We may also conclude that in the
developed world major UMTS/HSPA
service providers will naturally evolve to
3GPP-LTE, whereas most CDMA2000
providers, as well as GSM/EDGE providers
in the developing world, will select Mobile
WiMAX for mobile broadband wireless
access while providing service continuity
over their legacy networks.
 Table 8. Comparison of 3GPP LTE and IEEE 802.16e

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