Proceedings o f ICCT2003

Dynamic Bandwidth Allocation in Fixed BWA Systems

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Xiaohui Xu, Dong Liang, Hongqi Jiang, Xiaokang Lin State Key Laboratory on Microwave & Digital Communications, Department of Electronic Engineering, Tsinghua Univ. Beijing, China

xxiaohuiOO@mruls.tsinghua.educn
Abstrad-Broadband wireless access systems are members of a large class of shared medium access systems where a single central site communicates with a multiplicity of Subscriber Stations over a single transmission medium. T h i s article introduces a novel method of sharing the single transmission medium with a number of Subscriber Stations in rued BWA systems, which supports integrated voiceldata transport and dynamic bandwidth allocation. A MAC implementation in 3.5GHz fixed BWA system is given, which focuses on the dynamic access technology of voice. FDDmDM/TDMA mode is applied in the system. In the end of the article, block diagrams describing how voice access P S N through E l interface is given. Keywords--fuced Broadband Wireless Access; MAC; Dynamic BandwidthAllocation; Voice

The BS is located in the center of the area, which has a wired connection, such as fiber, to backbone and provides broadband accesses to buildings ~IWII~ it. The BS consists of access equipments, imtennas and service servers. Each SS provides different kinds of UNIs to the users of its building in local area It may suipport multiend-user and multiservice, such as telephone, video conference, IP, VOD, remote education, etc. The SS consists of access equipments and directional antennas.

I. INTRODUCTION The rapid development of Internet services has increased the need for high-speed information exchange. While the evolution of Internet services and the resulting traffic are hard to predict, the demand for data rates and quality of broadband last mile services will certainly increase dramatically in the near future.Comparing with the widely deployed cable and DSL, broadband wireless access (BWA) still has some advantages. These include avoiding distance limitations of DSL and high costs of cable, rapid deployment, high scalability, lower maintenance and upgrade costs, and granular investment to match market growth. A BWA system can provide traditional voice, data, high-speed Intemet access, VOP, remote education, video conference, VOD service and so on Furthermore, it can offer different Quality of Service (QoS) guarantees for different service. The remainder of this article is organized as follow. The next section ovetviews fvred BWA systems. We then

Figure 1. architectureof B W A systems

The BS uses four 90 sectored antennas to cover an area of 360O. Each sector may support multiple fresuency bands, and adjacent sector should be set in differentband. A frequency band in a BS is designed to support no less than 10 SSs. The frequency band of uplink is 3400343OMHq and that of downlink is 3500-3.53OMHz. We deploy the modulation of 16QAM for 3.5MHz band and QPSK for 7.5MHz band. [3] 111. MAC IN A 3.5GHz FIXED BWA SYSTEM The fixed BWA system we have descrilbed is a twoway point-to-multipoint wireless network, a kind of shared medium through which the radio waves propagate. Then MAC becomes a vew imDortant technology of the

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Duplex scheme. We choose fresuency division duplexing (FDD), for our system still provides traditional voice which is largely symmetric and predictable. At the same time, FDD is simpler t o be implemented thanTDD. Multiplexing in downlink. We choose time division multiplexing (TDM), for it has higher bandwidth efficiency than frequency division multiplexing

0.
Multiple access in uplink. Our system prefers to WO&with time division multiple access (TDMA) m t h e r than code division multiple access (CDMA) in order to counteractpropagation issues. [2] SS authentication and registration. If a SS wants to join a BWA system, the authentication and xcgistmtion are performed firstly, deploying ALOHA mode. After authentication and registration, the SS then obtains the SS-ID, the timing advance of transmission, the initial bandwidth to communicate with BS, as well as finishes power adjustment. Bandwidth request/gmt. Bandwidth request@" is used to realize dynamic bandwidth allocation among Merent services and Werent SSs. The scheduling and allocating algorithm are both implemented in BS. In t h e following paragraphs, we will give a m o r e detailed description of our MAC through the up- and downlink frame structure. Figure 2 shows the downlink frame s t r u m .
Plrme lignmcnt

transmit voice, it will transmit voice continuously. Otherwise, the Ethemet data will be transmitted in it. When even no Ethemet data to be transmitted, null bytes will fill it. Thus, the information in the byte can be voice or Ethemet data, and it is decided by the CIC-MAP in BS, which will be intmduced in the next section As illustmted in figure 3, the uplink frame is divided into 64 timeslots, which have the same fwed length. The SSs transmit data in their assigned timeslots using bursty subframe. Between each subframe there is a transition gap. In the end of uplink frame, the BS allocates timeslots periodically for the registrationof new SSs.

Figure 3. uplink frame structure

The busty subframe contains a fued-length subframe header and a variable-length payload. The payload is composed of three parts:
0

Ir

Figure 2. downlink frame structure

The downlink frame is fwed length and consists of four

fields:
0 0

Framealignment. MAC control messages. The MAC control messages include uplink-map (UL-MAP), other control messages and a two-byte CRC. The UL-MAPis the result of uplink bandwidth allocation which consists of several entries. Each entry has two items: SS-ID, beginning timeslot. By checking t h e UL-MAP, the SS then knows in which timeslot to send its bursty subframe in the next frame. Ethemet data. This fwed length field is used to transmit the bursty Ethemet data. When no Ethemet data to be transmitted, null bytes will fill it. Integrated data/voice. This field is also fured-length and can transmit at most 2*16 E l frames in one downlink frame. Each channel in E l frame is mapped to a fixed byte. If a byte is allocated to

MAC control messages. The MAC control messages can be the request for bandwidth message, the request for releasing bandwidth message or SS alarm message. Piggybacking is used to transmit them. The MAC allocates at least one fixed timeslot for the registered SS,so the request for bandwidth message or the request for releasing bandwidth message can be transmitted to BS whether there is infoxmation to be transmitted or not. Piggybacking may have some bandwidth wasted, but it has no collision and is easier to implement thanALOHA. Voice. This field is variable length that is determined by the quantity of established voice connection. The bursty uplink subframe only transmits those channels that have established voice connectionin turns. Ethemet data.This field is also variable length which is determined by the allocated timeslots. BANDWIDTH ALLOCATION IN A 3.5GHZ Iv. DYNAMIC FIXED BWA SYSTEM
As the downlink channel is a broadcast one, each SS

then receives the broadcast frame and checks out the information belonging to its own. In uplink, bandwidth nquest/gmt is considered to realize the dynamic bandwidth allocation among different services and different SSs. Firstly, when new data arrives, each SS requests for bandwidth according the service type. Secondly, after the BS has received the request, it allocates bandwidth according its allocating algorithm. T h i r d l y ,if the SS obtains enough bandwidth to transmit its data, then it begins its transmission. Lastly, it is

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important to release the used bandwidth after finishing transmission. O u r system supports integrated voicddata transmission. The two different services are processed separately according to their own characteristic. For busty data, the SS first buffers one or more Ethernet frames. Then the S S requests for bandwidth according to the bytes in buffer. Having finished the transmission of these buffering data, the SS then empties their space and request bandwidth for the data waiting to be transmitted. For traditional voice, the procedure is quite different. The following paragraphs will focus on the dynamic access technology of ttaditio~l voice in our system. -. As the traditional voice is connection-oriented, there are call establishment before t a l k beginning and call teardown after talk ending. Therefore, the S S requests for bandwidth at the time of call establishment. If the request is granted, the bandwidth wiIl not be released until t a l k ends. The access procedure of voice can be separated into t h r e e stages: call establishment and requesting for bandwidth stage, talk stage, call teardown and releasing bandwidth stage. Both the BS and the SSs will go to different steps in these three stages. The calling as well as the hanging up may be from the backbone or the user connecting to the SS. On the other hand, because the connection is a bidirectional one, the MAC should allocate and release bandwidth in both two directions. The processing of the three stages is approximately the same no matter which dimtion the calling and the hanging up from. Considering the circumstance that the calling and the hanging up are both from the user connecting to SS, we will give a detailed description of each stage in the dynamic access of voice. 0 Call establishment and requesting for bandwidth stage. When detecting the initial signaling for call establishment, the corresponding voice service module then requests for bandwidth to the MAC module. If there is no resource in the air, the request will be rejected. Otherwise, the request will be granted and the procedure goes to the next stage. 0 Talk Stage. The voice will occupy the bandwidth that have allocated to it during the talk stage. 0 Call teardown and releasing bandwidth stage. When detecting the final signaling for call teardown, the Corresponding voice sewice module then releases bandwidth cooperating with the MAC module. To manage the bandwidth used by voice, both the BS and the SSs maintain a CIC-MAP (Circuit Identification Codes-MAP) which describes the connection relationship between the channels of the two E l interfaces in BS and the channels of E l interfaces in all SSs. For there are two E l interfaces, the CIC-MAP in BS has 64 entries, and each ently includes two items: channel status (busy or free), corresponding CIC in SS. By checking the CICMAP, the MAC can connect the channel in BS with the corresponding channel in SSs, which function like switching. The CIC-MAP in BS can also help MAC to decide when to transmit voice channel and when to transmit Ethemet data. Similar with the CIC-MAP in BS, the one in S S has 32 entries for one El interface. Each

corresponding CIC in BS. As the most procedures of downlink transmission are similar with those of uplink, below we only give the description of uplink transmission procedure!; of voice access. The procedures of uplink transmission can be separated into two parts: one in SS,and the olher in BS. Figure 4 and figure 5 show the block diagram of voice access in SS and BS respectively. Our system provides an E 1 interface to PBX in SS and two E 1 interfaces to PSTN in BS. The signaling system between the PBX and PSTN is Signaling System 7 .

entry includes two items: channel status (busy or free),

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Figure 4. voice access block diagram in SS

In the SS, an E l transceiver receives the E l frame, decodes the line code, recovers the clock, arid separates the signaling and voice. The voice is then b a e r e d in the voice buffer, waiting to be transmitted. The signaling processing module analyzes the received signaling, checks the initial signaling for call establishment and the final signaling for call teardown, sends request for bandwidth and request for releasing bandwidth to the MAC control module, accomplishes the dynamic bandwidth allocation cooperating with the MAC control module, lastly fuces each signaling frame into signaling MAC packets and sends them to signaling buffer. After the signaling and voice are separately processed, they are sent to the upstream generator at the proper time under the control of the MAC control module. The upstream generator module combines the signaling MAC packets, voice and Ethernet data, and then sends them in the allocated timeslots.

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Figure 5. voice access block diagram in EiS

In the BS, after demodulation, the upstream bursty frame is deframed and separated into voice and signaling MAC packets under the control of MAC control module. Both the reconstructed signaling frame and voice are buffered, and then sent to the E 1 framer.

V. CONCLUSION
Fixed BWA systems, with their fast deployment, have proven to be reliable transmission media at very reasonable cost. Operating bands are from 2 to 60GHz. The fvred BWA system we have introduced in this article
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woks at 3.5GHz. FDDRIXWIDMA mode is employed in the MAC design. Our MAC supports integrated voicddata transmission and the dynamic bandwidth allocation technology improves the efficiency of frequency utility. Furthermore, the MAC is almost independent with physical layer, and most of this MAC is suitable for other physical layer in BWA systems, such as 28-60GHz BWA systems and multi-layer BWA systems.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT

REFERENCES
Helmut Bolcskei, Arogyaswami J. Paulraj, K. V. S. Hari, Rohib U.NabF, and Willie W Lu, Fixed broadband wireless access: state of the art, challenges, and future directions, IEEE communications Magazine, vol. 39 Issue. 1, pp. 100-108, Jan. 2001 a n e s h , Juan-Carlos Zuniga, and Fabio Concilio, Fixed [Z] Mina D low-frequency broadband wireless access radio systems, IEEE Communications Magazine, vol. 39 Issue.9, pp. 134- 138, Sept. 2001 [3] Wei Ding, Sihao Xiong, Meimei Dang,Qunshan W a n g , Runtian Kan, Ruoting Chang et al. Access network technical specification - 3.5GHz fixed wireless access technology, Ministry of Information Industry in China, Aug. 2001

[I]

The authors wish to acknowledge the technical contributions of Mr. Yanbin Mao, Miss Shan Yan, Mr. Jun Wang, and the others involved in the 3.5GHz BWA project.

[4] Carl Eklund, Roger

B. Marks, Kenneth L. Stanwood and Stanley

Wan& IEEE standard 802.16: a technical overview of the wirelessMAN air interface for broadband wireless access, IEEE CommunicationsMagzine, Vol. 40 Issue. 6, pp 98-107, June 2002

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