Hello, everyone!
Today, I would like to continue with the article on WiMAX System Architecture.
Fig. WiMAX System Architecture
A fixed broadband wireless access network is essentially a sectorised network, composed of two key elements:
Base Station (BS)
Customer Premises Equipment (CPE).
The BS connects to the network backbone and uses an outdoor antenna to send and receive high-speed data and voice to subscriber equipment, thereby eliminating the need for extensive and expensive wireline infrastructure and providing highly flexible and cost-effective last-mile solutions.
FWA base station equipment multiplexes the traffic from multiple sectors and provides an interface to the backbone network. For each sector, a radio transceiver module and a sector antenna is also required.
The multiplexer (such as a switch) aggregates the traffic from the different sectors and forwards it to a router that is connected to the service provider’s backbone IP network. The backbone connection can be provided with a point-to- point radio link or a fiber cable, and can be either IP or ATM-based.
The distance between the CPE and the BS depends on how the system is designed and the frequency band in which it operates. The CPE with an indoor antenna can be installed by the customers themselves, whereas the outdoor antenna requires a technician to install it.
When we need to define a point-to-multipoint wireless system, several parameters are very important:
The characteristics of the geographical area (for example, mountains)
The subscriber density
The bandwidth required
QoS
The number of cells, etc.
In areas with a low traffic demand and/or low subscriber density, the most important factor is the radio coverage whereas in areas with a high traffic demand and/or high subscriber density, capacity becomes a more important issue. Through a careful selection of network design parameters, tradeoffs can be made between coverage and capacity objectives to best serve the end users within the service area.
The WiMAX wireless link operates with a central BS through a sectorised antenna that is capable of handling multiple independent sectors simultaneously.
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