IEEE 802.20: Mobile Broadband Wireless Access for the Twenty-First Century

Access to networked data and information services has taken on an ever increasing importance to users for business, entertainment, and social networking applications. Users want high-speed, high-reliability, and high-quality access to these information services to be ubiquitous and available when they are fully mobile. Having these services available in a mobile environment also provides additional opportunities for service providers to enrich their offerings with location- based services. This article describes the IEEE 802.20 standard that was developed to meet the unique requirements for supporting high-speed data services while at the same time supporting full user mobility. It is a standard optimized to provide (IP-based) broadband wireless (Internet) access in a mobile environment, thereby affording network operators superior performance (e.g., higher data rates, lower latency) and lower costs as compared to networks built using standards that are not optimized for that purpose. The standard includes an OFDM wideband mode and a 625k-multicarrier mode. TDD duplexing is supported by both the 625k-MC mode and the OFDM wideband mode; FDD duplexing is supported by the OFDM wideband mode. Both modes are designed to support a full range of QoS attributes, making this technology suitable to support real-time streaming service that has low delay and jitter requirements, as well as near-real-time data services, where low error rate can be traded off for delay. These characteristics of the 802.20 standard make it suitable to meet user requirements for wireless mobile access well into the twenty-first century.