802.16
...physical structures consisting of fiber, coax or category 5 twisted pair in residential houses and business premises, relying instead on base transceiver stations (BTS) to transmit the bandwidth. However, at the initial stages, there weren't any defined standards for building the Systems which resulted in a variety of software and hardware. The acceptance level is therefore low as the prices for these products are often kept high.
As such, IEEE standard 802.16 was developed by The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Standards Association (IEEE-SA) which sought to make Broadband Wireless access (BWA) more acceptable. The official standard was approved in April 2002 and is now known as "Air Interface for Fixed Broadband Wireless Access System". It is also known as wireless Metropolitan Area Network (MAN) or wireless Local Loop.
(References from Computer Network, Andrew S. Tanenbaum, Person Education, 4th Edition)
IEEE 802.16 deals with the "first-mile/last-mile" connection in wireless MAN which refers to the topology between customer and central office/head end. It characterises the medium access control (MAC) layer that supports multiple physical layer specifications which customise the bandwidth between 10 and 66 GHz to the frequency band usage. The standard defines per station and per connection as the 2 forms of bandwidth allocation. For per station, the bandwidth is released to its users after it amasses all the requests and when it has been allocated the resources. For per connection, the BTS manages each connection directly.
IEEE 802.16 standard specifies a protocol that support low latency applications such as voice and videos and provides broadband connectivity without requiring a direct line of sight between subscriber terminals and the base transceiver station (BTS). It can support a large number of subscribers from a single...
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