A slot allocation technique for WiMAX backhaul networks

The fast growing wireless technologies have resulted in a huge cellular market all over the world. The providers of these technologies are competing to provide attractive services such as voice over IP, video streaming, and Internet access, with affordable prices. The IEEE 802.16e (WiMAX) is an emerging long-range, high-speed fixed and mobile wireless technology that is expected to spread quickly and be available globally within few years. In this paper, we show that, for a WiMAX backhaul network, the slot allocation technique that satisfies the data rate requirements of different service stations (SSs) while minimizing their total transmission power can be formulated as an integer optimization problem. When solved using the branch and bound algorithm, the obtained slot allocation allows the base station to serve the theoretical maximum number of SSs that can be supported under a given traffic load.