A New Resource Allocation Scheme for IEEE 802.16-based Networks

IEEE Standard 802.16 sets the stage for broadband wireless access system. This standard includes the medium access control layer (MAC) and physical layer with higher data rates and longer transmission range compared to those supported by the existing wireless technologies. It also provides QoS (Quality of Service) for the applications such as Voice over IP, video streaming and high bandwidth file transfer. With the ability of broadband wireless access of an IEEE 802.16 system, a proper resource allocation scheme for packet transmissions is imperatively needed. In this paper, we present a new resource allocation scheme, called extra bandwidth granting (EBG), to improve transmission efficiency of an IEEE 802.16-based network. Our proposed scheme can be adopted along with the existing scheduling algorithms and the multi-priority scheme without any modification. The experimental results show that by using our EBG, the packet queuing delay could be significantly improved, especially for the service flows of higher-priority classes.