Advanced communication architecture which takes advantage of multipath propagation, exploiting spatial degree of freedom in order to both increase throughput and reduce bit error rates. Such technology is expected to play a key role in boosting the performance of WiMAX systems.
Published in Chapter:
Multimedia Internet Applications over WiMAX Networks: State-of-the-Art and Research Challenges
Nicola Scalabrino (CREATE-NET and Italian National Research Council (CNR) – IIT, Italy), Daniele Miorandi (CREATE-NET, Italy), Enrico Gregori (Italian National Research Council (CNR) – IIT, Italy), and Imrich Chlamtac (CREATE-NET, Italy)
Copyright: © 2008
|Pages: 8
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-59140-993-9.ch047
Abstract
The market for conventional first mile solutions (e.g., cable, fiber etc.) presents indeed high entrance barriers, and it is thus difficult for new operators to make their way into the field. This is due to the extremely high impact of labor-intensive tasks (i.e., digging up the streets, stringing cables etc.) that are required to put the necessary infrastructure in place. On the other hand, the market is experiencing an increasing demand for broadband multimedia services (Nokia, 2001), pushing towards the adoption of broadband access technologies. In such a situation, Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) represents an economically viable solution to provide Internet access to a large number of clients, thanks to its infrastructure-light architecture, which makes it easy to deploy services where and when it is needed. Furthermore, the adoption of ad hoc features, such as self-configuration capabilities in the Subscriber Stations (SSs) would make it possible to install customer premises equipment (CPE) without the intervention of a specialized technician, so boosting the economical attractiveness of WiMAX-based solutions. In this context, WiMAX is expected to be the key technology for enabling the delivery of high-speed services to the end users.