802.16 Session #10 Report

IEEE 802.16 Session #10 Report

Session #10 of the IEEE 802.16 Working Group on Broadband Wireless Access took place on 6-9 November 2000 in Tampa, Florida, USA.

Attendance at Session #10 was a record 211; see the attendance list. 174 people attended during enough meeting intervals to receive credit for having "participated" in the session for membership purposes; this broke the previous record of 128.

Task Group 1 (TG1): Air Interface for 10-66 GHz
TG1 resolved the 584 comments received in response to the Working Group Review of the working version of the 10-66 GHz IEEE 802.16.1 air interface, which has been downloaded over 20,000 times. A decision to forward the document to Working Group Letter Ballot was postponed until Session #11 pending an editorial restructuring which will accomodate the request of the Task Group 3 MAC Committee. An interim Task Group 1 meeting was scheduled for 12-14 December 2000 in San Diego, California, USA to address this editorial work.

Task Group 2 (TG2): Coexistence
TG2 resolved comments arising in the Final Task Group Review of its Recommended Practice for Coexistence of Broadband Wireless Access Systems. The document was then approved for a Working Group Letter Ballot, which opened on 17 November and runs through 27 December 2000. Liaison letters were produced to thank several organizations for their participation in the review (see below). TG2 Co-Chair Andy McGregor announced his resignation due to a position reassignment. Phil Whitehead of Radiant Networks PLC in the UK, a long-time active participant in TG2, agreed to accept the position of Co-Chair and was appointed.

Task Group 3 (TG3): Air Interface for licensed bands, 2-11 GHz
TG3 completed an initial PHY Evaluation Criteria and Scoring Matrix and heard 20 PHY proposals presentations. The deadline for member scoring of these proposals was extended until 20 November. The group planned three Calls for Contributions:

an Invitation to Contribute PHY proposals, issued on the basis of the scoring results
A Call for Contributions on the TG3 MAC in the form of enhancements to the TG1 MAC
A Call for Contributions on MAC evaluation criteria

TG3 also discussed additional contributions and formed three committees:

a standing TG3 MAC subcommittee (Chaired by Subir Varma)
an ad hoc Channel Model Committee (Chaired by Vinko Erceg)
an ad hoc Traffic Model Committee (Chaired by Rick Baugh)

WirelessHUMAN^TM Study Group (Wireless High-Speed Unlicensed Metropolitan Area Networks)
Following a successful Tutorial/Discussion Session, the (WirelessHUMAN^TM) Study Group completed a revised IEEE Project Authorization Request (PAR) requesting approval to initiate a standardization effort. The PAR was approved by 802.16 and then by the IEEE 802 Executive Committee. It is on the agenda for final approval by the IEEE-SA Standards Board on 7 December.

Anticipating Standards Board approval, 802.16 has created 802.16 Task Group 4 to develop the standard in accordance with the PAR. The Task Group 4 Chair is Durga P. Satapathy of Sprint, who has chaired the WirelessHUMAN^TM Study Group since March 2000. Following the rapid timeline described in the PAR, 802.16 has already issued the Call for Contributions for Modifications of 802.16 MAC and 802.11a-HIPERLAN/2 PHY for the WirelessHUMAN^TM Standard. An Interim Meeting is tentatively planned for 15-16 February 2000 in Mountain View, California, USA (following the first TG4 meeting at 802.16's Session #11).

Working Group Activities

Kiernan Elected Vice Chair: Brian G. Kiernan was elected as Working Group Vice Chair for a term extending until March 2002. Kiernan, who is Senior Vice President with InterDigital Communications Corp., will remain as Chair of TG3. Kiernan's election was later confirmed by the IEEE 802 Executive Committee.
PAR Revision: The Working Group discussed a plan to revise the 802.16 PARs but deferred action until Session #11.
Press Release: New 802.16 Publicity Chair Dean Chang led the creation of an IEEE-SA Press Release covering 802.16 activities. This was later approved by the IEEE 802 Executive Committee and released by the IEEE-SA on 21 November.
Liaison: The Working Group approved several Liaison Letters 35-38 (see the session document list); these were later approved by the IEEE 802 Executive Committee . The Working Group passed a motion to appoint Marianna Goldhammer as liaison to ETSI BRAN on the subject of FWA below 11 GHz; this was reported to ETSI BRAN in a liaison letter. José M. Costa provided an Update on Fixed Wireless Access Activities in ITU-R.

Future Meetings
The Working Group accepted a proposal from José Costa to host Session #11 in Ottawa, Canada, with Nortel Networks as corporate host. This site selection overrides an earlier decision to hold the meeting in Tel Aviv, Israel. Full details, including an on-line registration form, are available at the Session #11 web page.

Documents
The Session #11 document list indexes the documents processed during the week of the meeting as well as followup documents.

Complete Minutes

About IEEE 802.16
The IEEE 802.16 Working Group on Broadband Wireless Access Standards is creating the WirelessMAN^TM family of standards for wireless metropolitan area networks. The mission of Working Group 802.16 is "to develop standards and recommended practices to support the development and deployment of fixed broadband wireless access systems." 802.16 is a unit of the 802 LAN/MAN Standards Committee, the premier transnational forum for wired and wireless networking standardization.

This report was created on 21 November by:

Roger Marks (r.b.marks@ieee.org)
Chair, IEEE 802.16 Working Group on Broadband Wireless Access Standards
tel: +1-303-497-7837
r.b.marks@ieee.org

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