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Viodi View Newsletter - March 30th, 2005
IEEE 802.22 Wireless Regional Area Network (WRAN)
March 15-17, 2005 Meeting, Atlanta, GA
By Alan J Weissberger
aweissberger@sbcglobal.net
[Editor's Note: To read the full text of this report, which is highly recommended, please email the author directly at aweissberger@sbcglobal.net]
Executive Summary
IEEE 802.22 is a new IEEE 802 Working Group (WG) formed in 2004. The WG is chartered to develop an interoperable air interface for use in spectrum allocated to TV Broadcast Service, thus enabling a Point to Multipoint (P-MP) Wireless Regional Area Network (WRAN). The WRAN system will provide packet-based transport capabilities that can support a wide range of services (e.g. internet access, data transport, voice and streaming video) to residential, Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) and Small Office/Home Office (SOHO) locations.
The 802.22 committee desired to reach an understanding and consensus for functional requirements before proceeding with developing standards for 802.22 MAC and PHY protocols and thus spent this entire meeting working on a Functional Requirements document.
WRAN technology is initially targeted at wireless broadband (remote) access for geographically dispersed, sparsely populated areas. The transmission range can be up to 100Km, Non Line of Sight (NLOS) due to use of TV broadcast bands as License Exempt (LE) spectrum. Hence, this new network technology should be of interest for remote access to grid computer sites and to independent telcos operating in developing countries, rural or non- metropolitan areas.
The target markets for 802.22 WRANs are not an exhaustive set, but serve as guidelines and examples that suffice for meeting the broad applicability goals set forth by the air interface “Five Criteria” as described in the IEEE 802.22 Project Authorization Request (PAR) and “Five Criteria.” The PAR can be downloaded (free) from:
http://www.ieee802.org/22/802-22_PAR.pdf
The target markets to be addressed by the 802.22 protocols in WRAN networks are single family residential, multi-dwelling units, SOHO, small businesses, multi-tenant buildings and public and private campuses. In accordance with ITU-R definitions, Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) (and hence WRAN) provides access to one or more (public and private) core networks, rather than forming an end-to-end communication system. 802.22 systems serve fixed location customers, but who might be geographically fixed, re-locatable or nomadic.
A Wireless Regional Area Network (WRAN) system based
on 802.22 protocols is intended to make use, on a non-interfering basis,
of unused TV broadcast channels (6MHz, 7MHz, or 8MHz)
to address, as a primary objective, rural and remote areas and low population
density underserved markets with performance levels similar to those of
broadband access technologies such as digital subscriber line (xDSL) technologies
and Digital Cable modem service. A secondary objective is to have this
system scale to serve denser population areas where spectrum is available.
The WRAN system must be capable of supporting a mix of data, voice and
audio/video applications. These include Internet access, VoIP, and streaming
video.
The critical parameters for serving these markets using wireless access technology is the combination of coverage / capacity factors that affects access cost per user, the deployability, maintainability and product costs associated with the customer premise installation, and the spectrum efficiency / reuse for economically serving the required number of customer locations with a minimum number of base station locations and backhaul routes.
Positioning of WRAN amongst IEEE 802 wireless networks
Note that 802.22 WRAN offers the greatest coverage due to use of VHF/UHF
bands Illustration courtesy of the IEEE 802.22 Working group
The 802.22 wireless regional area network system is aimed at providing broadband access with capabilities similar to the ADSL and cable modem technologies over less populated rural areas. The typical range of the system is 33 km (based on F(90, 99.9)) for a coverage of population density of 1.25 person/km2 and above, maximum is 100km. The system will need to operate over a set of typical channels models. Provisioning (as usual) was not discussed at this meeting. It will likely be a proprietary feature for the network operators.
[To read the full text of this report, which is highly recommended, please email the author directly at aweissberger@sbcglobal.net]
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