IEEE Standard 802.

16:
A Technical Overview of the Wireless
MAN Air Interface for Broadband
Wireless Access
Carl Eklund
Roger B. Marks
Kenneth L. Stanwood

Presented by
Manasi Navare

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Agenda
 Scope
 Architecture
 PHY Layer Design Issues
 PHY Layer Details
 MAC Layer Design Issues
 MAC Layer Details
 Uplink Scheduling Services
 SS Initialization
 Summary

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Scope
 802.16: Specifies Air Interface, including the medium access
control layer (MAC) and physical layer (PHY) of fixed point-to-
multipoint broadband wireless access (BWA) systems providing
multiple services.
 Wireless MAN replaces the cabled access networks such as fiber
optic links, coaxial systems using cable modems and DSL links.
 Provides easy and less expensive deployment over broad
geographic areas as compared to costly infrastructure required
in deploying cable links.

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 Architecture
 Wireless MAN has a point-to-
multipoint architecture.
 Base Station (BS) connected
to public networks.
 BS serves Subscriber
Stations (SS’s)
- BS and SS stationary
- SS serves a building
(business or residence)
- Users inside building
connect to SS with Ethernet
or Wireless LANs
 Multiple services, with
different QOS priority,
simultaneously.
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802.16 Reference Model

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PHY layer Design Issues
 10-66 GHz Unlicensed  2-11 GHz Licensed and
Band Unlicensed Band (802.16a)
 Higher frequency so  Addresses the need for Non-
covers lesser geographic line-of-sight operation in
residential applications.
area.
 Air Interfaces:
 Cannot penetrate walls,
- WirelessMANSC2
trees.
- WirelessMAN-OFDM: 256
 Need for Line-of-sight subcarriers. Access by TDMA
propagation. - WirelessMAN-OFDMA: 2048
 Single Carrier Modulation( subcarriers. Multiple access by
Air Interface is called assigning subset of multiple
Wireless MAN-SC) carriers to individual receivers.
 Fundamental Design
Challenges remained.

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PHY layer Details
 Broadband Channels
- Wide channels (20,25,28 MHz)
- Nyquist square root raised cosine pulse.
 Forward error correction used is Reed Solomon GF(256) with an inner
block convolutional code.
 Multiple Access
- TDM signal: Individual SS’s are allocated time slots serially on
downlink.
- TDMA signal: For access in Uplink direction.
 Adaptive burst profiles on Uplink and Downlink.
 Duplex Scheme agnostic
- Time Division Duplex (TDD)
- Frequency Division Duplex (FDD)
. Support for the Full Duplex and Half Duplex Subscriber stations.
 Frames- 0.5,1 or 2ms and divided into Physical slots (1PS=4QAM sym)

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 Adaptive Burst Profiles
 PHY Supports adaptive burst profiling in which transmission
parameters including modulation and coding schemes may be
adjusted individually to each SS on a frame- by- frame basis.

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Adaptive PHY (contd)
 Upto 12 burst profiles can be used ( downlink bursts tagged
with Downlink Interval Usage code DIUC)
- DIUC 0 : Frame control field
- DIUC 1-6: TDM Burst Profiles
- DIUC 7-12: TDMA Burst Profiles.
 Burst dynamically assigned according to the link condition.
- Burst by burst, per subscriber station.
- Trade-off capacity vs. robustness in real time. (Eg: 16QAM
more robust than 64QAM but lower data rate.)

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TDD downlink Sub-frame
 Preamble: Used for
Synchronization and
Equalization.
 Frame Control Sequence:
Contains DL-MAP and UL-
MAP messages along with
Downlink and Uplink
Channel Descriptors (DCD,
UCD)
 TDM portions carry data
organized into bursts with
different burst profiles and
hence different levels of
transmission robustness. 10
TDD Downlink Sub-frame (contd)
 DL-MAP message states the PS’s at which different bursts begin
in the Downlink Sub frame.
 UL-MAP message defines the usage of Uplink and contains the
grants addressed to SS’s.
 DCD messages include following parameters :
- BS Transmit power
- PHY Type
- FDD/TDD Frame duration
- Downlink Burst profile parameters like modulation type, FEC
code type, Last (Shortened )Codeword length
 Bursts are transmitted in the order of decreasing robustness to
allow SS’s to receive their data correctly before losing
synchronization with BS due to a lower robust burst profile.
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FDD Downlink Sub-frame

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FDD Downlink frame (contd)
 DL-MAP includes map of both TDM and TDMA sections.
 TDM portion contains data transmitted to one or more of the
following:
- Full Duplex SS’s
- Half Duplex SS’s scheduled to transmit later in the frame than
they receive
- Half Duplex SS’s not scheduled to transmit in the frame
 TDMA portion is used to transmit data to some Half Duplex SS’s
that are scheduled to transmit earlier in the frame than they
receive.
- TDMA Burst Preamble used for re-synchronization

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TDD Uplink Sub-frame

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TDD Uplink Sub-frame
 SS’s are granted bandwidth in UL-MAP message in downlink sub
frame
 SS’s transmit in the assigned allocation using burst profiles
tagged with Uplink Interval usage code (UIUC) in UL-MAP
message.
 Consists of contention based allocations for initial system access
- Bandwidth Requests
- Ranging Requests (RNG-REQ)
- Contention resolved using the truncated exponential back off
 Transmissions have synchronization preamble
 Ideally all data from a single SS is concatenated into a single
PHY burst.

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 Transmission Convergence (TC)
Sublayer

 Present between MAC and PHY

 Transforms variable length MAC protocol data units (MPDU’s) into
fixed length FEC blocks with a shortened block at the end of each
burst .
 TC layer PDU starts with a pointer pointing to the beginning of the
next MAC PDU header within the FEC block
 TC PDU allows resynchronization to next MAC PDU in case of
irrecoverable errors in previous FEC block. 16
 MAC Design Issues
 Designed for point-to-multipoint applications.
 Address need for high bit rates, both uplink (to BS) and downlink
(from BS).
 Access and bandwidth allocation algorithms to accommodate
multiple terminals per channel and multiple users per terminal.
 Support variety of services like data, packetized VOIP, IP
connectivity while maintaining QOS.
 Support variety of Backhaul requirements like ATM and packet-
based protocols.
 Mapping of transport layer specific traffic to a MAC Connection in
order to carry traffic more efficiently than the original transport
mechanism.
 Dynamically switch between different burst profiles with different
modulation and coding schemes to ensure 99.999 % link
availability.
 Address the need of authenticating/privacy in the network
access.
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 Medium Access Control details
 Divided into 3 sub-layers – Convergence sub-layer, Common part
sub-layer and Privacy Sub-layer
 Convergence Sub-layer (CS)
 ATM CS for ATM services and Packet CS for IP services such
as IPV4, IPV6, Ethernet and VLAN
 Classifies SDU’s(Service Data Units) in to MAC connections

 Preserves/Enables QoS and Bandwidth Allocations

 Also performs payload Header Suppression(PHS) and re-

constructions to enhance link efficiency
 Common part Sub-Layer
 Carries out key MAC functions

 Handles different MAC functions like Connection

management, formation of PDU’s and Fragmentation/Packing

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 Common Sub-layer Architecture
 802.16 connection oriented MAC and each connection is
identified with 16 bit Connection Identifiers (CID)
 Upon entering into networks SS is assigned with 3 CID’s in each
direction
 Basic CID – used for time-critical MAC and RLC messages
 Primary Management CID – longer and delay tolerant messages
used for connection management and Authentication
 Secondary Management CID- used for standard based management
messages such as DHCP, TFTP and SNMP
 In addition to these CIDs SS are allocated with Transport CID’s
for services
 MAC will reserve additional CIDs for Broadcast and Multicast
services (DL-MAP, UL-MAP)
 MAC reserves one connection for contention based initial access.

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 MAC PDU formats
 Data unit exchanged between BS and SS
 Consists of Fixed length MAC header , variable length Pay
load(data) and “optional” CRC
 Header
 Generic Header(HT-0)
 Contains data or management
payload
 Bandwidth request header(HT-1)
 Contains only header
 3 types of Sub-headers
 Grant management Sub-header –to convey Bandwidth needs to BS
 Fragmentation Sub-header – indicates presence of any fragments of SDU’s.
 Packing Sub-header – Indicates packing of multiple SDU’s into one PDU.
 Grant management and Fragmentation SH are inserted after
generic header (as indicated by TYPE field), Packing SH may be
inserted before each MAC SDU.

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 Transmission of MAC PDUs
 Incoming MAC SDUs from convergence sub-layer are mapped to
corresponding services and formatted according to MAC PDU
format
 On the receiving end PDUs are re-constructed back to SDUs
before indicating them to higher layers
 Construction of MAC PDUs uses the Fragmentation and Packing
mechanisms for given bandwidth.
 Multiple PDUs in single SDU- Fragmentation
 Multiple SDUs in single PDU - Packing
 Fragmentation /packing can be initiated in both UL and DL
traffics
 Fragmentation and/or Packing will allow efficient use of
bandwidth – improves network efficiency and effectiveness

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 Radio Link Control (RLC)
 Controls Power level and Ranging during initial access using
RNG-REQ and RNG-RSP messages
 Handles PHY transition from one burst profile to another burst
profile based on link conditions
 Burst Profile for DL is tagged with DIUC and UL is tagged with
UIUC
 During and before initial Ranging - SS monitors DL signal quality
and can request for DL to be served in particular burst profile
(RNG-REQ/DBPC-REQ), BS can accept/reject the request
 Similarly BS can monitor UL signal quality and commands SS to
use a particular Burst profile simply by including appropriate
burst profile UIUC with SS’s grants in UL-MAP
 RLC continuously monitors and controls the burst profiles.
 RLC forces SS to request for appropriate burst profile based on
channel conditions

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RLC - Changing the Burst profile
More Robust Less Robust

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 Uplink Scheduling Services
 Each connection in uplink is mapped to a scheduling service
 Unsolicited grant service (UGS)
 Grants negotiated at the time of connection-BS schedules regularly
 Used for Constant Bit-rate (CBR) traffics
 No explicit Bandwidth requests issued by SS
 Grant management Sub-header may include
 SLIP indicator – backlog due to clock skew/missed maps
 Poll me bit- terminal need to be polled by BS for a different service
 Real time polling service (rtPS)
 For Variable bit rate , Dynamic traffic such as MPEG
 Terminals polled frequently
 Uses Bandwidth request frame to request intended Bandwidth

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 Uplink Scheduling Services
 Non - Real time polling service (nrtPS)
 Services carried on these connections tolerate longer delays and are
rather insensitive to delay -jitter
 Similar to rtPS except that polls are issued less frequently
 Utilizes random access transmit opportunities for sending bandwidth
requests instead of dedicated TXOP’s.
 Best Effort (BE)
 Neither throughput nor delay guarantees are provided
 SS sends requests for bandwidth in either random access slots or
dedicated transmission opportunities.
 The occurrence of dedicated opportunities is subject to network
load, and the SS cannot rely on their presence.

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 SS Initialization
 Channel Acquisition
 Scans frequency list to find the BS operating channel
 Synchronizes the DL transmission by detecting preambles and observes
DCD/UCD to find out MCS and FEC schemes
 Ranging
 SS sends RNG-REQ in initial maintenance window
 BS measures power and timing and sends adjustments in RNG-RSP
 SS advances to new power and timing values and send RNG-REQ
 This loop is continued till Power and Timings are adjusted
 Authentication
 SS X.509 digital certificate to send Authorization request
 BS will verify the authorization and responds to the request
 Registration
 SS sends the list of capabilities to BS in REG-REQ
 BS will respond with REG-RSP along with supported capabilities
 SS will acknowledges REG-RSP with ACK

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 SS Initialization

 IP connectivity
 After registration SS will get IP address through DHCP
secondary Connection
 Connection set-up
 802.16 uses the concept of service flows to define
unidirectional transport of packets on either DL/UL.based on
QoS parameters.
 3 way handshake REQ-RSP-ACK

 Established at the time of connection and can be changed

dynamically
 Starts communicating with BS

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Summary
 Provides main stream alternative to the existing Broadband
Technology
 The 802.16 Air Interface provides great opportunities for vendor
differentiation, at both the base station and subscriber station,
without compromising interoperability.
 IEEE Standard 802.16 is the foundation of the wireless
metropolitan area networks of the next few decades.

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