Title: Development and role of broadband wireless access networks for fixed and nomadic users

Authors: Terje Tjelta, Lars Erling Braten, Chris Howson, Thierry Montalant

Addresses: Telenor R&D: Snaroyveien 30, 1331 Fornebu, Norway. ' Telenor R&D: Snaroyveien 30, 1331 Fornebu, Norway. ' Thomson R&D, 1, Av Belle-Fontaine, 35576 Cesson-Sevigne, France. ' CEGETEL, 50 place de l'ellipse, 92985 Paris La Defense, France

Abstract: Hybrid wireless network technologies are well suited to providing broadband access everywhere with enhanced performance in term of coverage, capacity and throughput compared to access networks based on a single technology. Wireless broadband technologies have implicit advantages such as an ability to serve the customer everywhere and mitigate the digital divide, offer right capacity at right cost and remain connected on the move. Wireless is scalable in both capacity and coverage areas, an imperative as requested services evolve towards increasingly bandwidth hungry applications. There is a rapid development that takes place today, with a considerable interest in establishing WiMAX solutions copying the success of WiFi. This may well happen, but many challenges are still to be overcome. Interoperability of hybrid networks is a key design objective to drive solution costs down. Efficient utilisation of the frequency spectrum requires progress in various fields such as interference suppression and smart radios, efficient resource management and access control. The designing and planning of hybrid networks require suitable software tools taking into account user and service characteristics as well as evolving technical and economical factors. This paper is based on work in the project BROADWAN (BROADWAN, 2004; Tjelta et al., 2004), partly funded under the Information Society Technologies (IST) priority of the European Commission Sixth Framework Programme.

Keywords: broadband wireless access networks; network planning; fixed users; nomadic users; mobile networks; wireless networks; interoperability; network design; hybrid networks; interference suppression; smart radios; resource management; access control.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMNDI.2005.007939

International Journal of Mobile Network Design and Innovation, 2005 Vol.1 No.1, pp.84 - 90

Published online: 04 Oct 2005 *

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