Session #11 of the IEEE 802.16 Working Group on Broadband Wireless Access took place on 22-26 January 2000 in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The session was expertly hosted by Dr. José Costa of Nortel Networks, which served as corporate host. Nortel sponsored a banquet in which the company's Director of Standards, Roy J. Mills, addressed the Working Group. Attendance at Session #11 was 167, a record for an 802.16 Interim Meeting.
Summary
The session was marked by an agreement to create a unified Working Group air interface document, with a common, flexible MAC platform supporting multiple spectrum-dependent physical layers. The first stage (the 10-66 GHz physical layer and MAC to support it) was approved for a Working Group Letter Ballot. In the development of the 2-11 GHz physical layer, the focus was narrowed and consolidation is underway. The WirelessHUMANTM Task Group held its first formal meetings to address licensed-exempt operations and found general consensus. A Recommended Practice on Coexistence was readied for Sponsor Ballot (its final round of balloting).
Task Group 1 (TG1): Air Interface for 10-66 GHz
Following resolution of 373 comments received in response to the most recent review of the TG1 Draft, the document was approved for Working Group Letter Ballot, to begin as soon as possible.
Task Group 2 (TG2): Coexistence
TG2 resolved comments designed to close out the Working Group Letter Ballot of the Draft Recommended Practice for Coexistence of Broadband Wireless Access Systems, which focuses on 23.5-43.5 GHz. The Working Group agreed to move the Draft to Sponsor Ballot (its final ballot stage) pending the final recirculation of all comments. Discussion commenced regarding new coexistence projects.
Task Group 3 (TG3): Air Interface for licensed bands, 2-11 GHz
TG3 received 16 PHY contribututions. Based on an evaluation, 6 proposing groups (with significant overlap among them) were invited to submit proposals, in the format of a draft standard, for consideration at Session #12. A new, detailed set of Evaluation Criteria were agreed upon, and a baseline channel model and traffic model were adopted. Regarding the MAC, 11 contributions were received. Some consensus developed as to the key issues. A Call for Contributions on MAC issues was published. On both MAC and PHY topics, extensive joint meetings with Task Group 4 were held.
Task Group 4 (TG4): WirelessHUMANTM (Wireless High-Speed Unlicensed Metropolitan Area Networks)
Following the December 7 approval of its PAR, Task Group 4 held its first meetings and heard 17 contributions. Discussions indicated general agreement among the proposals, and consolidation is progressing. Sanjay Moghe was selected as Vice Chair and David Chauncey as Coexistence Liaison. MAC and PHY focus teams were set up. TG4 remains on schedule and plans an interim meeting on 15-16 February 2001 in San Jose, California, USA
Working Group Activities
Tutorial
Session #11 included a tutorial on Frequency Domain Equalization for 2-11 GHz Broadband Wireless Systems by David Falconer and Lek Ariyavisitakul.
Future Meetings
Session #12 will be held in Hilton Head, South Carolina, USA on 12-15 March in conjunction with the IEEE 802 Plenary Meeting. The Session will open at 1 pm Monday and close by 5 pm Thursday. Monday morning is available for Task Group meetings.
Session #13 will take place in Orlando, Florida, USA on 14-18 May 2001 along with 802's other Wireless Working Groups (802.11 and 802.15). Session #14, and 802 Plenary, is 9-13 July 2001 in Portland, Oregon, USA. The Working Group decided not to accept an invitation to hold Session #15 in Sydney, Australia. Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, USA; San Jose, California, USA; and Tel Aviv, Israel were presented as alternatives, with a decision to be made in March.
Documents
The Session #11 document list indexes the session documents (more than 100 of them).
Acknowledgements
Simon Perras of Industry Canada's Communications Research Center provided and set up a network server for use during the meeting. Thanks to 802.16 Member Luc Boucher for making the arrangements. Carl Bushue agreed to oversee the software restoration of the ailing 802.16 server in time for Session #12.
Complete Minutes
Full minutes are forthcoming. Draft Minutes are available from TG1 PHY and MAC groups and from TG3.
About IEEE 802.16
The IEEE 802.16 Working Group on Broadband Wireless Access Standards is creating the WirelessMANTM 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.
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