International Journal of P2P Network Trends and Technology (IJPTT) - Volume3 Issue4- May 2013

Introduction to the Wimax and Its Related Issues and Its

Comparison with Wi-Fi

Puram Ashok, pulipati manas, Rayala Ravi Kumar

Students of K L University, Associate Professor of K L University,

Department of ECE, Vaddeswaram, India.

ABSTRACT: One of the developing technologies in the recent times which are not yet fully implemented and
which requires a lot of research work is WIMAX which was proposed for a goal of bringing the usage of broadband
till the LAST MILE. A lot of concerns and issues regarding this technology and this paper will mainly discuss
about the basics and types of WIMAX and also deals with some of questions regarding the safety in using WIMAX.
This paper is focused on description of static wimax and mobile wimax and also describes about the handover
policies which is the major advantage in mobile wimax in addition to the major drawbacks in this issue and some
comparisons are made with WIFI.

Keywords:Fixed wimax,Mobile wimax,Handover,Backhaul

NEED FOR WIMAX: INTRODUCTION:

In recent years, Broadband technology has been
required by a high percentage of the people. In the
recent years , the demand has risen rapidly .DSL
operators, who initially focused their deployments in
densely-populated urban areas, now wimax
technology is available forsuburban and rural areas
where new markets are quickly taking root. The DSL
market, which is based on the wire line infrastructure
, can provide this service to the millions of business
subscribers and private subscribers and havind a huge
growth rate. But supplying the quick rollout of
infrastructure to the last mile has become a difficult
and expensive challenge for carriers who cannot
possibly keep pace with the demand.This made the
subscibers provide this technology only to the urban
areas with broadband ready infrastructure have the
benefits of DSl services they do not require any
technology to fill the void .The introduction of the
new WiMAX standard - fits this agenda perfectly.
World wide Interoperability for Microwave access
which is referred to as WIMAX. It can provide a low-
cost, locally managed, wireless metropolitan area
network (MAN) infrastructure with capabilities that
can equal or surpass those of 3G/3G+/4G public
wireless networks.
WiMAX networks can be deployed for temporary or
permanent use and can be much more easily isolated
from large-scale failures in the electric power or
telephone grids. WiMAX is a MAC and physical
layer wireless communications technology. WiMAX
was designed to provide outdoor broadband wireless
access .The set of standards that define WiMAX are
developed and maintained by the IEEE 802.16.
Theoretically IEEE 802.16 can provide single
channel data rates up to 75 Mbps on both the Uplink
and downlink..Two major variants of WiMAX have
emerged: 802.16d standard supports fixed or slowly
moving users; 802.16e standard supports mobile
users. There is non line of sight, WiFi sort of service,
a small antenna on your computer connects to tower.
In this mode, It uses a lower frequency range - 2GHz

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International Journal of P2P Network Trends and Technology (IJPTT) - Volume3 Issue4- May 2013
to 11GHz . They can able to diffract, bend around the
obstacles.
There is a line-of-sight service, a fixed dish antenna
points straight towards at the WiMAX tower from a
rooftop. It is stronger and more stable, so it can able
to send a lot of data with few errors. Line-of-sight
transmissions uses higher frequencies with ranges
reaching 66 GHz. At the higher frequencies, there is
possible of less interference and lot more of
bandwidth.
WiFi access is to 4 to 6 mile of radius.
BASIC OPERATION AND REQUIREMENT
FOR WIMAX:
Typical point to multipoint Broadband Wireless
Access (BWA) systems are composed of two key
elements: base station and subscriber equipment. The
base station connects to network backbone and uses
an outdoor antenna to send and receive high-speed
data and voice to subscriber equipment, thereby
eliminating the need of extensive and expensive
wireline infrastructure and providing highly flexible
and cost-effective last-mile solutions.
A wimax base station serves subscriber stations using
Non-Line-of-Sight (NLOS) or LOS Point-to-Multi-
Point connectivity; and this connection is referred to
as the last mile communication. Ideally, Wimax
(802.16) should use NLOS Point-to-Multi-Point
antennas to connect residential or business
subscribers to the Wimax Base Station (BS). A
Subscriber Station (Wimax CPE-Customer Premise
Equipment)typically serves a building using wired or
wireless LAN.
TYPES OF WIMAX:
The WIMAX has been classified into two types-
FIXED and STATIC WIMAX.
FIXED WIMAX: Based on IEEE 802.16d standard,
this type of wimax is used for point to point data
transformation, generally when the user is stable or
when there is a minimum movement for example
within a room in the house. This fixed wimax uses
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Orthogonal Frequency Division
Multiplexing(OFDM).The fixed wimax can support
both Frequency Division Duplexing and Time
Division Duplexing.
CHALLENGES IN FIXED WIMAX:
1.The communication will be taking place between
WIMAX CPE and NLOS(Non Line Of Sight)
basestation and so the requirements for the link
security are greater than those required for a wireless
technology
2.Another challenge is setting up high performance
radio links which are capable of providing data rates
comparable to wired broadband service, using
equipment that can self installed indoors by users,
like that of Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) and cable
modems so as to increase the data rate in non line of
sight environment.
MOBILE WIMAX: Based on IEEE 802.16e
standard, this type of wimax is used to provide the
internet acess to vehicular class, where the user can
move from one location to another location which
uses base station hand off techniques, the major
advantage of mobile wimax when compared with
fixed wimax.
It uses a low frequency of 2-11 GHz.It is based on
Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple
Acess(OFDMA) and mainly uses Time Division
Duplexing Mode(TDD).
HANDOVER TYPES: The basic role of WiMAX
handover is to provide the continuous connection
when a Mobile Station (MS) migrates from the
coverage area of one BS to the coverage area of
another BS.In the IEEE 802.16e ,three types of
handover are described:
1. Hard handover,
2. Macro Diversity Handover (MDHO) and
3. Fast Base Station Switching (FBSS).
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Hard handover is mandatory in WiMAX systems.
Other two types of handover are optional.
Hard Handover:
During hard handover the MS communicates with
only just one BS in each time. Connection with the
old BS is broken before the new connection is
established. Handover is executed after the signal
strength from the neighbors cell is exceeding the
signal strength from the current cell.
TERMINOLOGY IN WIMAX:
FREQUENCY DIVISION DUPLEXING(FDD):
Transmission and receiving of signal from base
station and subscriber station will take place in
different channels.
TIME DIVISION DUPLEXING(TDD): Unlike in
FDD, instead of two different channels which are
used by FDD for transmitting and receiving signals,
only one channel is used for both.
BACKHAUL: Interconnection of one base station
with another base station with the help of microwave
links which enables the roaming feature for wimax
user from one base station coverage to another just
like in the case of cellular roaming is known as
backhaul.
ORTHOGONAL FREQUENCY DIVISION
MULTIPLEXING(OFDM): This technology is
generally used for facing the challenges that are
present in the non line of sight transmission where it
uses a large number of sub carriers to carry the data
on several parallel channels. It uses mainly slow
modulated narrow band signals instead of rapidly
modulated wideband signal. The low symbol rate
gives the added advantage of eliminating the Inter
Symbol Interface(ISI). Channel equalization is
simplified because OFDM uses many slowly
modulated narrowband signals rather than one
rapidly modulated wideband signal. As a result this
method is mainly preferred in the Fixed Wimax.
ORTHOGONAL FREQUENCY DIVISION
MULTIPLE ACCESS(OFDMA): Achieving
multiple access to the above discussed OFDM
technique is known as OFDMA. It is a multi user
version which can be achieved by subsets of
subcarriers to individual users in order to get
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simultaneous low data transmission to various users
is known as OFDMA. Its main advantage is the low
data rate transmission for several users and also the
delay will be reduced and it will be maintained
constant. This type of technique will be used in
Mobile WIMAX.
SECURITY ISSUES:
As we all know that the security concerns are more in
wireless technologies when compared with wired
technologies. The security issues can be classified
under two categories where the first one relates to the
user and other relating to the service provider.
Issues relating to user: Eavesdropping and data
destruction are the two major issues related to the end
user. Each layer handles different aspects of security
and the data encryption must be taken place at the
link layer so as to provide a security from
eavesdropping.
Issues relating to the service provider: Authentication
and access control are the two major security issues
in wimax relating to the service provider.
Unauthorized access should be prevented by the
service provider and it can be implemented at various
levels of network such as physical layer etc in order
to avoid any inconvenience to the users. At the
transport layer Secure Sockets layer (SSL) may be
used to add security to transport layer protocols and
packets.
PROTOCCOLS USED IN WIMAX:
1.RADIUS(Remote Authentication Dial-In User
Service): It is client/server protocol used in the link
layer where the remote access servers communicate
with the central server so as to check and verify the
authentication of that particular user and if the user is
eligible to access the requested service or not. This
consists of a central database where it has the details
of all the users and it can be shared by the remote
servers.The RADIUS server returns one of three
responses to the RAS : 1) Access Reject , 2) Access
Challenge, 3) Access Accept.
Access Reject -- The user is unconditionally denied
access to all requested network resources.
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Access Challenge -- Requests additional information
from the user such as a secondary password, PIN,
token, or card.
Access Accept -- The user is granted access. Once
the user is authenticated, the Remote Authentication
Dial-In User Service(RADIUS) server will check that
the user is authorized to use network service
requested.
2.Secure Socket Layer(SSL): This protocol is
mainly used in the transport layer regarding the
management of security in the message transmission
on the internet. SSL has recently succeeded by
TLS(Transport Layer Security).SSL uses a program
layer located between the Internet's Hypertext
Transfer Protocol (HTTP) and (TCP)Transport
Control Protocol layers. SSL uses public and private
key encryption system from the RSA, which also
includes the use of digital certificate. Digital
certificate are implemented at application layer which
is depending on the network sensitivity. TLS and
SSL are an integral part of most Web browsers and
the Web servers. If a Website is on a server that
supports Secure socket layer , SSL can be enabled
and specific Web pages can be identified as requiring
SSL access.
3.Privacy Key Management(PKM): The PKM
protocol will be used in WIMAX between the
customer premise equipment(CPE) and the base
station(BS). The CPE will act as a client requesting
the keying material to the base station which acts as a
server and acts according to the requests made from
the CPE and allows only the requested keying
material to be reached to the CPE and also sees that
the CPE receives only the keying material for which
they are authorized. The Privacy Key Management
(PKM) Protocol first creates an Authorization Key
(AK), which is a secret symmetric key shared
between the Wimax CPE (Customer Premise
Equipment) and BS. This protocol uses X.059 digital
certificates which is send by CPE to the BS. The BS
then authenticates the syntax and information and
validates the certificate, if properly verified ,it will
encrypt the Authorization Key (AK).
Since only the Wimax CPE device contains the
matching private key, only that Wimax CPE device
can de-crypt the message and obtain the AK assigned
to it.
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4. Extensible Authentication Protocol(EAP):
EAP authentication potocol is used in wireless and
point to point protocol connections. During the link
establishment phase of the PPP connection specific
authentication mechanism is not chosen with this
EAP .Instead of this during the connection
authentication phase the PPP peers negotiate to
perform EAP. When the connection authentication
phase is reached, the peers negotiate the use of
specific EAP authentication scheme known as an
EAP method. By using a supplicant --a software
component, the EAP peer and the EAP authenticator
send EAP messages supplicant uses EAP to
authenticate network access and a data link layer
transport protocol such as PPP. The authentication
server and the EAP authenticator send EAP messages
using Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service
(RADIUS). The end result EAP messages are
exchanged between EAP components on the EAP
peer and the authentication server. EAP infrastructure
is as shown in figure
ADVANTAGES OF WIMAX :
Coverage:
It can provide coverage to hundreds of users at a time
and can manage of receiving and sending of data at
very high speed with full of network security.
High Speed:
The High speed voice and high speed of connectivity
over the long distances makes it more demanded in
urban and rural areas.
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Wi-Fi is intended for LAN applications, scale from

Multi-functionality within the Wimax one to tens with one subscriber, for the each CPE
Technology: device. Fixed channel sizes (20MHz).

It can perform a variety of task at a time such as
video streaming and offering high speed internet
voice application, transformation of data, providing
telephone service, etc.
DIADVANTAGES:
1.Lack of Quality
It is difficult to provide high quality to each and
every user because they can access from the same
tower.
2.Expensive network
Its installation and operational cost are more and due
to heavy structure, tower and antennas makes the
Wimax network high cost network.
WiMAX can efficiently support from one to
hundreds of Consumer premises equipments (CPE),
with the unlimited subscribers behind each consumer
premises equipments(CPE). Flexible channel sizes
are from 1.5MHz to 20MHz.
Bit rate:
Wi-Fi works at 2.7 bps/Hz and peak up to 54 Mbps in
20 MHz channel.But WiMAX works at 5 bps/Hz and
peak up to 100 Mbps in 20 MHz channel.
Quality of Service:
Wi-Fi does not guarantee any Quality of service but
WiMax will provide several level of QoS.WiMAX
provides ubiquitous broadband while Wi-Fi does not.
Reference:

3.Bad Weather [1] WiMAX taking wireless to the MAX by Deepak

Pareek
The quality of this wimax services varies in rainy
season because of the weather condition interrupt the [2] WiMAX a wireless technology revolution by
signal which causes bad signal and broadcasting may G.S.V.Radha Krishna Rao
stops
[3] Internet (Google and Wikipedia).
COMPARISION BETWEEN WIMAX AND WI-
FI:

IEEE Standards:

WiMAX technology is based on IEEE 802.16 and

Wi-Fi is based on IEEE 802.11 standard Both are
IEEE standards.

Range:

Wi-Fi provides local network access for a few

hundred feet with speeds of 54 Mbps, But WiMAX
antenna is expected to have a range of 40 miles with
speed of 70 Mbps.

Scalability:

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