IEEE 802.16 - Broadband Wireless Access standard

IEEE 802.16 group works on Broadband Wireless Access standards. It was established in 1999 by IEEE Standard Board.

802.16 family of standards has the official name WirelessMAN – Wireless Metropolitan Area Network. There is also name WiMAX - Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access and industry group called The WiMAX Forum. The mission of this forum is to achieve interoperability of broadband wireless products.



Click here to find out more about WiMAX.

Original 802.16 standard was approved in December 2001. It described point to multipoint Broadband Wireless transmission in frequency of 10-66 GHz. It uses single carrier physical modulation.

Amendment 802.16a brought new frequency of 2-11 GHz. It uses Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplex - OFDM and Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access - OFDMA.

802.16c has brought modifications for 10-66 GHz band.

802.16d standard was delivered in September 2003 to align 802.16 standard with ETSI HIPERMAN standard.

802.16e-2005 has brought better Quality of Service – QoS, and OFDMA. This standard is also often called Mobile WiMAX.



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