Lte vs. Wimax: A Technical Comparison and Analysis of Their Phy and Mac Layers

LTE vs.
WiMAX: A technical
comparison and analysis of their
PHY and MAC layers
Michelle Wang and Jean-François Beaumont
Defence R&D Canada – Ottawa

Technical Memorandum
DRDC Ottawa TM 2011-121
November 2011
LTE vs. WiMAX: A technical comparison and
analysis of their PHY and MAC layers
Michelle Wang
Jean-François Beaumont

November 2011
Principal Author
Original signed by Michelle Wang
Michelle Wang
Approved by
Original signed by Bill Katsube
Bill Katsube
Head/Communications and Navigation Electronic Warfare
Approved for release by

Original signed by Chris McMillan
Chris McMillan
Chair/Document Review Panel

c Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada as represented by the Minister of
National Defence, 2011

c Sa Majesté la Reine (en droit du Canada), telle que représentée par le ministre
de la Défense nationale, 2011
Abstract
This report presents a technical comparison and analysis of two developing pre-fourth
generation (pre-4G) wireless communications systems: the long term evolution (LTE)
and the worldwide interoperability for microwave access (WiMAX). This analysis is
used to speculate on the possible evolutionary directions of 4G systems since the
developing direction of the earlier generations of wireless communications systems
has been historically strongly directed by their technological aspects. Special focus is
laid on the air interface, especially the physical (PHY) layer and media access control
(MAC) layers as defined by the open system interconnection (OSI) model. The
higher layers are briefly discussed to provide a better understanding of the overall
systems’ operation. The two pre-4G systems appear to use similar technologies that
are optimized for each system. Because of the technological similarity, other factors
such as business and marketing, may then be more important determinants of the
pre-4G systems’ survival in the 4G systems evolution.
Résumé
Ce rapport présente une comparaison technique et analyse de deux systèmes de com-
munications sans fil pré-quatrième genération (pré-4G) en cours de dévelopement :
long term evolution (LTE) et worldwide interoperability for microwave access (Wi-
MAX). Cette analyse est utilisée pour spéculer sur les directions d’évolution possibles
des systèmes 4G parce que l’orientation du dévelopement des générations précédentes
des systèmes de communications sans fil a été historiquement fortement influencée
par leurs aspects technologiques. Une attention spéciale est apportée à l’interface
hertzienne, notamment les couches physique et de contrôle d’accès au support tel que
définis par le modèle d’interconnexion de systèmes ouverts. Les couches supérieures
sont brièvement discutées pour fournir une meilleure compréhension de l’operation
générale des systèmes. Les deux systèmes pré-4G semblent utiliser des technologies
similaires qui sont optmisées pour chaque système. En raison de la similarité techno-
logique, d’autres facteurs tel que les affaires et la commercialisation, peuvent être par
conséquent des déterminants plus importants de la survie des systèmes pré-4G dans
l’évolution des systèmes 4G.
DRDC Ottawa TM 2011-121 i

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ii DRDC Ottawa TM 2011-121

Executive summary
LTE vs. WiMAX: A technical comparison and analysis

of their PHY and MAC layers
Michelle Wang, Jean-François Beaumont; DRDC Ottawa TM 2011-121; Defence
R&D Canada – Ottawa; November 2011.
The objective of this report is to perform a technical analysis and comparison of
the technological choices of pre-fourth generation (pre-4G) wireless communications
systems and then to speculate on the possible evolutionary directions of 4G systems.
The two most popular pre-4G systems at the time of writing this report are analyzed:
the long term evolution (LTE) and the worldwide interoperability for microwave
access (WiMAX). Special focus is given to the air interface, especially the physical
layer and the media access control (MAC) layer, which are referred as the air interface
of WiMAX. These same two layers of LTE are analyzed for a fair comparison with
that of WiMAX. Only the high level of operations are discussed to limit the scope of
this study.
The driving force of the 4G wireless communications technologies appears to be the

Internet. Currently, most broadband Internet services are offered by wired and fixed
access systems. The flexibility of broadband access will likely be demanded by users
of an Internet on the go service. This type of internet service and the operational
requirements defined by the international mobile telecommunication (IMT)-Advanced
initiative, determine the functions and properties of 4G systems.
Analyzing the most current standards and related documents of the systems reveals
a high degree of similarity between the two pre-4G systems. In terms of system archi-
tectures, both systems make use of a two-tier architecture: a network architecture for
Internet protocol (IP)-based traffic and a more efficient air interface. The IP-based
network architecture exclude circuit-switched (CS) components. The air interfaces
of both system include a set of key enabling technologies: orthogonal frequency divi-
sion multiple access (OFDMA), multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) and smart
antennas. The MAC implementation of both system is designed to support the funda-
mental layer-2 requirement: resource management. Resources are centrally controlled
at the eNB of LTE and the base station (BS) of WiMAX. Processing functions such
as header compression and hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) are used to en-
hance performance. As a result, mobile broadband systems appear to be converging
in their air interfaces and network architectures to support the need of broadband
services and are frequently called IP-OFDMA broadband systems. Because of the
similar technological choices, other factors such as business and marketing may then
be more important determinants of the pre-4G systems’ survival in the 4G systems
evolution.
DRDC Ottawa TM 2011-121 iii

Sommaire
LTE vs. WiMAX: A technical comparison and analysis

of their PHY and MAC layers
Michelle Wang, Jean-François Beaumont ; DRDC Ottawa TM 2011-121 ; R & D
pour la défense Canada – Ottawa ; novembre 2011.
L’objectif de ce rapport est d’effectuer une analyse et comparaison technique des choix
technologiques des systèmes de communications sans fil pré-quatrième génération
(pré-4G) et de spéculer sur les directions d’évolution possibles des systèmes 4G. Les
deux systèmes pré-4G les plus populaires au moment d’écrire ce rapport sont ana-
lysés : long term évolution (LTE) et worldwide interoperability for microwave access
(WiMAX). Une attention spéciale est apportée à l’interface hertzienne, notamment
la couche physique et la couche de contrôle d’accès au support (MAC), qui sont
désignées comme étant l’interface hertzienne du système WiMAX. Les mêmes deux
couches du système LTE sont analysées pour obtenir une comparaison équitable avec
celle du système WiMAX. Seul les opérations de niveau supérieur sont discutées pour
limiter la portée de cette étude.
L’élément moteur des technologies de communications sans fil 4G semble être l’In-

ternet. Actuellement, la plupart des services Internet à haut débit sont offerts par
le biais des systèmes cablés et à accès fixe. La flexibilité des systèmes à large bande
sera vraisemblablement demandée par les utilisateurs d’un service Internet mobile.
Ce type de service Internet et les exigences opérationnelles définies par l’initiative
télécommunications mobiles internationales évoluées (TMI évoluées), déterminent les
fonctions et propriétées des systèmes 4G.
L’analyse des standards les plus actuels et des documents connexes des systèmes
revèle un degré élevé de similitude entre les deux systèmes pré-4G. En terme d’archi-
tectures de système, les deux systèmes utilisent une architecture à deux niveaux : une
architecture de réseau pour le trafic basé sur le protocole Internet (IP) et une interface
hertzienne plus efficace. L’architecture de réseau basée sur IP exclue les composants de
commutation de circuits. Les interfaces hertziennes des deux systèmes comprennent
un ensemble de technologies habilitantes clés : multiplexage par répartition orthogo-
nale de la fréquence (OFDM), entrée multiple sortie multiple (MIMO) et antennes
intelligentes. La mise en oeuvre de la couche MAC des deux systèmes est conçue
pour supporter l’exigence fondamentale de la deuxième couche : la gestion des res-
sources. Le contrôle des ressources est centralisé à la station de base pour LTE (eNB)
et WiMAX (BS). Les fonctions de traitement tel que la compression d’en-tête et la
demande de répétition automatique hybride (HARQ) sont utilisées pour améliorer les
performances. Par conséquent, les systèmes mobiles à large bande semblent converger
iv DRDC Ottawa TM 2011-121

au niveau de leur interfaces hertziennes et architectures de réseau pour supporter le
besoin de services à haut débit et sont fréquemment appelés systèmes à large bande
IP-OFDMA. En raison de choix technologiques similaires, d’autres facteurs tel que
les affaires et la commercialisation peuvent être par conséquent des déterminants plus
importants de la survie des systèmes pré-4G dans l’évolution des systèmes 4G.
DRDC Ottawa TM 2011-121 v

vi DRDC Ottawa TM 2011-121

Table of contents
Abstract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . i
Résumé . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . i
Executive summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iii
Sommaire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iv
Table of contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
List of figures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . x
List of tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xii
1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
2 Wireless technology evolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.1 LTE background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.1.1 Evolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.1.2 Standardization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.2 WiMAX background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.2.1 Evolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.2.2 Standardization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
3 LTE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
3.1 System overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
3.1.1 EPS network elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
3.1.1.1 EPC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
3.1.1.2 E-UTRAN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
3.1.1.3 UE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3.1.2 EPS interfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
3.1.3 EPS protocol architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
DRDC Ottawa TM 2011-121 vii

3.1.4 E-UTRAN protocol architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
3.1.5 Channel structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
3.2 PHY layer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
3.2.1 Time and frequency structures of radio resources . . . . . . 28
3.2.2 PHY layer model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
3.2.2.1 Transport-channel processing . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
3.2.2.2 Physical-channel processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
3.2.3 Interaction with upper layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
3.3 MAC layer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
4 WiMAX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
4.1 System overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
4.1.1 Functional elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
4.1.1.1 CSN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
4.1.1.2 ASN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
4.1.2 Reference points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
4.1.3 Protocol architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
4.1.4 Interaction between protocol layers of IEEE 802.16 and the

higher layer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
4.2 PHY layer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
4.2.2 Physical-layer processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
4.2.2.1 Randomizing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
4.2.2.2 FEC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
4.2.2.3 Interleaver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
4.2.2.4 Repetition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
viii DRDC Ottawa TM 2011-121

4.2.2.5 Modulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
4.2.2.6 OFDMA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
4.2.2.7 Advanced antenna technologies . . . . . . . . . . . 58
4.3 MAC layer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
4.3.1 Service-specific convergence sublayer . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
4.3.2 MAC common part sublayer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
4.3.3 Security sublayer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
5 Comparison of LTE and WiMAX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
5.1 System overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
5.1.1 Functional elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
5.1.2 Interfaces and reference points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
5.1.3 Protocol architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
5.1.4 Interaction between protocol layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
5.2 PHY layer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
5.2.2 Physical-layer processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
5.3 MAC layer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
5.4 Comparison summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Annex A: List of LTE standards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Annex B: List of EPS interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
List of acronyms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
DRDC Ottawa TM 2011-121 ix

List of figures
Figure 1: Access technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Figure 2: Mobile broadband evolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Figure 3: Network range expansion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Figure 4: IEEE 802 standards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Figure 5: EPS architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Figure 6: EPS overall architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Figure 7: From UMTS to evolved UMTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Figure 8: EPS feature distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Figure 9: S1 and LTE-UE user plane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Figure 10: S1 and LTE-UE control plane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Figure 11: Protocol model for S1 and X2 interfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Figure 12: S1 interface user and control planes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Figure 13: X2 interface user and control planes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Figure 14: Radio interface protocol architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Figure 15: Downlink DLL structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Figure 16: Uplink DLL structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Figure 17: Downlink channel mapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Figure 18: Uplink channel mapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Figure 19: Frame structure type 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Figure 20: Frame structure type 2 (for 5 ms switch-point periodicity) . . . . 29
Figure 21: UL and DL resource grid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Figure 22: Mapping of a resource grid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
x DRDC Ottawa TM 2011-121

Figure 23: Physical layer model for UL-SCH transmission . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Figure 24: Transport channel processing for DL-SCH, PCH and MCH . . . . 35
Figure 25: Transport channel processing for BCH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Figure 26: Transport channel processing for UL-SCH . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Figure 27: Overview of uplink physical-channel processing . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Figure 28: Overview of physical channel processing for two transmit antennas 39
Figure 29: Generic OFDMA and SC-FDMA processing chain . . . . . . . . . 40
Figure 30: Time domain view of data transport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Figure 31: MAC structure overview, UE side . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Figure 32: WiMAX system architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Figure 33: Functional view of ASN Profile C . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Figure 34: IEEE 802.16e-2005 protocol reference model . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Figure 35: Protocol layer architecture for control, IP-CS and ETH-CS signal 52
Figure 36: Example of TDD frame structure for mobile WiMAX . . . . . . . 54
Figure 37: WiMAX PHY transmission chain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Figure 38: FEC and HARQ for WiMAX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Figure 39: PDU and SDU in a protocol stack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Figure 40: MAC PDU format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Figure 41: WiMAX PHY and MAC layers protocol stack . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Figure 42: Protocol layer architectures for LTE and WiMAX . . . . . . . . . 65
DRDC Ottawa TM 2011-121 xi

List of tables
Table 1: LTE technical specifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Table 2: IEEE 802 WGs and TAGs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Table 3: Evolution of the IEEE 802.16 standard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Table 4: UE categories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Table 5: Slot structure for normal and extended cyclic prefix . . . . . . . . 31
Table 6: Resource block characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Table 7: Channel coding schemes for transport channels . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Table 8: Channel coding schemes for control informations . . . . . . . . . . 37
Table 9: OFDMA parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Table 10: MAC function location and direction association . . . . . . . . . . 46
Table 11: WiMAX radio resource characteristic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Table 12: WiMAX OFDMA parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Table 13: Comparison of LTE 3GPP Release 8 and WiMAX R1.0 (IEEE
802.16e-2005) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
xii DRDC Ottawa TM 2011-121

1 Introduction
Cellular technology has significantly evolved since its introduction in the early 1980’s.
First generation (1G) cellular phones were basic circuit switch analog systems de-
signed for voice transmission only. Second generation (2G) phones brought further
improvements with the introduction of digital systems, performing both voice and
data transmission at low rates. Today’s third generation (3G) systems are multi-
function devices, such as the iPhone, which can make phone calls as well as retrieve
e-mail, store and play music, surf the Web and stream video files. Although the third
generation is a big improvement over the first two, the primary function of the device
is still to transmit voice on a digital circuit switch system, with the added capability
to carry Internet protocol (IP) traffic at moderate data rates.
In order to continue supporting voice and data at higher data rates, cellular systems
must shift to a new network architecture. Voice and data will no longer be separate
entities in 4G systems. They will be combined on a single packet-based all-IP core
network to support high speed multimedia applications such as mobile TV, video
conferences, fast web browsing, telemedicine, large file transfer and bank services.
Envisioned data rates to support these advanced services are on the order of a few
hundred Mb/s to 1 Gb/s for high and low mobility respectively. The power and size of
the Internet are therefore, driving the fourth generation (4G) cellular system require-
ments. In order to meet the performance levels required by these Internet services
such as spectral efficiency, low latency and seamless handover between cells, several
key technologies have been developed to help meeting the requirements [1]. Some
of the key technologies are orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA),
multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) and smart antennas.
In addition to the service demand, the operational requirements of 4G systems are

officially defined by the international telecommunication union (ITU) as the interna-
tional mobile telecommunication (IMT)-Advanced initiative. Only systems meeting
the IMT-advanced requirements will be considered as 4G systems. Three standards
have been proposed for the development of 4G systems. These standards are: third
generation partnership project(3GPP) long term evolution (LTE), worldwide inter-
operability for microwave access (WiMAX) and ultra mobile broadband (UMB).
LTE is an evolution of the global system for mobile communications/universal mobile

telecommunication system (GSM/UMTS) family and specifies the next generation
mobile broadband access. LTE will likely be the 4G technology of choice for most
of the major cellular carriers based on the GSM/UMTS family. 3GPP Release 8
defines the base standards for LTE. Future releases of 3GPP standards will continue
to upgrade LTE.
WiMAX is considered as both 3.5G and 4G technology. It does not follow either the
DRDC Ottawa TM 2011-121 1

GSM or code division multiple access (CDMA) family. It has been standardized by
the WiMAX Forum in conjunction with the Internet engineering task force (IETF)
and the institute of electrical and electronics engineers (IEEE). The initial plans for
WiMAX were to provide high speed broadband wireless access where the provision
of wired access was inconvenient or expensive. WiMAX was initiated by the IEEE
802.16d-2004 standard and there have been hundreds of WiMAX installations world-
wide supporting this standard. Subsequently, the mobile WiMAX standard approved
in 2005 (IEEE802.16e–2005) was designed to support high-speed mobile Internet ac-
cess and other data intensive applications. This report is primarily concerned with
mobile WiMAX and not fixed WiMAX (IEEE 802.16d-2004).
UMB was proposed by Qualcomm, the same manufacturer that originally designed
the CDMA family of systems, the North American counterpart of the GSM/UMTS
family. UMB was based on the IEEE 802.20 standard. At the moment, no major
carrier has agreed to upgrade their network to comply with this standard. Therefore,
it is very unlikely that UMB will be considered at all as a competing 4G standard.
In terms of technology, WiMAX and LTE are very similar since they have an OFDMA-
based air interface, which is optimized for IP. This air interface is referred to as IP-
OFDMA. These IP-OFDMA based systems are also frequently referred to as mobile
broadband systems [1, 2]. However, in terms of market introduction, they are on
a different timescale as WiMAX has appeared before LTE, giving it a window of
opportunity. WiMAX’s early adaptors are new entrants and computer chip manufac-
turers, particularly Intel which has been involved in the early development of WiMAX
chipsets. On the other hand, LTE’s adaptors are mobile operators and mobile equip-
ment manufacturers. Therefore, the two technologies will currently be deployed and
marketed in different countries for different purposes. WiMAX is currently being
deployed and LTE is expected to be widely deployed by 2012 or 2013 [3]. The world’s
first commercial LTE network was launched in December 2009 by TeliaSonera in
Sweden and Norway [4].
The aim of this report is to perform a technical comparison of LTE and WiMAX
systems, more specifically of their physical (PHY) and media access control (MAC)
layers as defined by the international organization for standardization /open system
interconnection (ISO/OSI) model. The PHY and MAC layers are the focus since
they are referred as the air interface of WiMAX. These same two layers of LTE are
analyzed for a fair comparison with that of WiMAX.
These pre-4G systems are converging in the air interface and the networking architec-
ture to support delivery of multimedia services; however, they are at various stages
of evolution. On that note, since both LTE and WiMAX are still currently under
standardization, the technical content of this report is based on the stabilized ver-
sions of the standards available at the time of writing: 3GPP Release 8 and WiMAX
2 DRDC Ottawa TM 2011-121

Release 1.0 (IEEE 802.16e-2005) [5] as well as the WiMAX Forum Network Architec-
ture Release 1.0. As a result, the view presented here may be different from the most
current standard. However, the general standard framework presented in this report
still holds. The specifications do not describe the rationale behind the technological
choices. This report includes additional references to disclose some of the rationales.
Section 2 presents a brief discussion on the ongoing standardization effort at the

3GPP, 3GPP2 and WiMAX forum to define mobile broadband standards. Section 3
and Section 4 cover protocol layers of LTE and WiMAX, with an emphasis on the
PHY and MAC layers. The higher layers are only briefly discussed. Section 5 discusses
the similarities and differences among the two standards. A table summarizing these
similarities and differences is included at the end of the section. Section 6 then
concludes the report.

2 Wireless technology evolution
Figure 1 [6] shows that communications systems are evolving to offer higher per-
formance and efficiency in a mobile environment. Numerous systems exist due to
trade-offs between system parameters such as range, bit rate and mobility [1]. Pa-
rameters may be adjusted by each system to meet performance requirements
Figure 1: Access technologies
The driving force behind communications systems evolution has been the broad adop-
tion of wired broadband Internet services [1, 6, 7]. Communications technologies are
now at the stage to offer mobile accesses with broadband services. The convenience
and capability of broadband accesses will likely drive the same users to seek similar
broadband services and applications wherever they go [8]. This evolutionary path of
communications systems is also referred to as mobile broadband. Broadband implies
an internet connection that allows different types of services such as data transfer,
voice and video at high speeds. Mobile broadband is therefore, pushing these ser-
vices to mobile devices such as cellular phones, laptops and personal digital assistants
(PDAs) [9].
Since the IP protocol is the key to the Internet, WiMAX and LTE (Figure 2 [6]) use
IP-based architectures. In addition to IP-based architectures, both systems employ
important technologies, including OFDMA, MIMO, smart antennas and software de-
fined radios to achieve higher performance. As a result, the air interfaces and network
architectures of mobile broadband systems appear to be converging to support the
requirements of broadband services. This type of mobile broadband systems is fre-
quently called IP-OFDMA broadband system.

Figure 2: Mobile broadband evolution
Figure 2 charts the roadmap for the mobile broadband systems. Several different
technologies offer solutions to the requirements of the mobile broadband systems and
to the trade-off function between the various system parameters (i.e. range, bit rate
and mobility). Contenders come primarily from two industrial markets: broadband
access and cellular communications.
The first worldwide launch of the mobile broadband system was WiMAX, which is
influenced by the broadband-access standard body, IEEE. WiMAX evolved from the
wireless access standard (IEEE 802.16d-2004) and is based on the IEEE 802.16e -
2005 standard. Therefore, it inherits functionalities optimized for broadband data
services. On the other hand, the cellular-communications standards are based on
3GPP and 3GPP2. The successors of 3.5G are [10]: 3GPP’s high speed packet access
(HSPA) and 3GPP2’s evolution-data only (EVDO). The EVDO standard appears to
follow the evolution path of 3GPP or IEEE and will likely create unification in the
diverse standards [1]. The LTE standard is 3GPP’s answer to the mobile-broadband
requirements and inherits both the capabilities and restrictions of the legacy cellular
systems. The most significant challenge that 3GPP faces is the need to support higher
data rates since the legacy standards are designed mostly for mobile voice. Similarly,
IEEE faces the challenge to support mobility.
The remainder of this section provides an introduction to wireless-broadband and

cellular evolution, followed by the development of LTE and WiMAX.
In the late 1990s, IEEE created the 802.16 working group to create an air interface for
broadband wireless accesses (BWAs) [11,12] on a metropolitan area network (MAN),

previously implemented on a shorter range local area network (LAN) (Figure 3 [13]).
The working group leveraged the data over cable service interface specification (DOC-
SIS) standard, which was developed to permit high-speed data transfer over cable.
The modified standard was introduced as IEEE802.16d in 2004, targeted fixed ap-
plications and is also known as fixed WiMAX. In 2005, IEEE 802.16d was further
enhanced to provide mobility support. This standard is known as IEEE 802.16e or
mobile WiMAX.
Figure 3: Network range expansion
The world’s first mobile WiMAX deployment was commercially offered in Korea in
2007 [11] under the name of “WiBro”. WiMAX is supported by a broad industrial
base. The competition among numerous vendors, ranging from small companies
to big manufacturers such as Motorola, Samsung, Intel and Cisco [14], potentially
results in lower cost. It also has backing from traditional cellular companies such as
Sprint/XOHM and Clearwire.
IEEE has the history of developing diverse standards for wireless local area networks
(WLANs), such as Wireless Fidelity (WiFi) also known as IEEE 802.11 wireless
networking. On one hand, it developed WiMAX standard, which is sometimes called
“WiFi on steroids”, to offer higher data rate while on the other hand also increase

coverage and mobility for its BWA technologies. This made WiMAX a competitor
for cellular system traffic and customers.
Cellular technologies have progressed through a sequence of generations and are about
to reach their 4G. Although each generation is supported by several different access
technologies, the technology set of each generation is focused on providing a standard
level of service.
– In 1980, 1G systems delivered the basic mobile voice using frequency division mul-
tiple access (FDMA).
– In the early 1990s, 2G introduced digital transmission and most popular systems
employed time division multiple access (TDMA) and CDMA technologies.
– From 2000, 3G sought higher digital data transmission speeds offered by CDMA.
– Finally, 4G systems have been developed to support broadband services for mobile
devices.
The standardization and deployment of LTE has been slower than that of WiMAX.
To facilitate quick acceleration to 4G, 3GPP made a strategic choice for an IP-based
architecture that does not support backward compatibility for circuit-switched (CS)
services. This allows new mobile broadband operators, who have not been following
the cellular evolution path, to enter the cellular industry.
LTE has backing from most of the traditional cellular companies covering the majority
of the cellular market [14]. LTE is also supported by most WiMAX manufacturers
with the exception of Intel. Cisco is a new entrant to LTE since it started exploring
LTE in late 2009 [15]. Due to the large number of cellular subscribers, the cost of
LTE will probably be low as well.
In summary, both LTE and WiMAX are pre-4G standards. Because of the early evo-
lution and adoption of mobile WiMAX, in October 2007, the IEEE 802.16e standard
is included in the international mobile telecommunication 2000 (IMT 2000) specifica-
tion [16], created to harmonize 3G cellular systems. Cellular technologies are moving
toward higher mobility and speeds. These systems are being developed by the tra-
ditional cellular industry as well as the computer industry, which originally worked
on the WLAN standards. In order for systems to be considered as 4G, they should
adhere to the IMT-Advanced specification.
2.1 LTE background

3GPP is evolving its UMTS standard to accommodate increasing mobile usage. The
evolution consists of two parts. The air interfaces inherited from the GSM/enhanced
data rates for GSM evolution (EDGE) and UMTS/HSPA technologies with enhance-

ments to support wider bandwidths. The evolving UMTS network architecture re-
duces network level elements when compared with UMTS [17].
The new OFDMA-based air interface is frequently referred to as the evolved UMTS
terrestrial radio access network (E-UTRAN) since the UMTS air interface is called the
universal terrestrial radio access network (UTRAN). E-UTRAN is backward compat-
ible with UTRAN. In addition to the air interface, 3GPP also defines a new IP-based
network architecture. The network architecture is termed as the evolved packed core
(EPC) network that aims to provide support for packet data. EPC is also referred
to as the system architecture evolution (SAE). The entire system is termed as the
evolved packet system (EPS) that is also known by another acronym, the evolved
UMTS. The EPS is therefore, basically the concatenation of the E-UTRAN air inter-
face and EPC network.
2.1.1 Evolution
3GPP started evolving its 3G mobile systems with the 3GPP TSG radio access net-
work (RAN) evolution workshop in November 2004 [18]. More than 40 contributions
with view points and proposals on the evolution of UTRAN were made by operators,
manufacturers and research institutes. Following the workshop, 3GPP started a study
with the objective of developing a new radio access technology – reduced cost per
bit, increased service provisioning, flexible use of existing and new frequency bands,
simplified architecture and open interfaces as well as reasonable terminal power con-
sumption [19]. The most important issue of the study was the need for agreement on
the E-UTRAN requirements and was settled in June 2005.
The LTE standardization was then split into two parts – the RAN working group
focusing on the air interface and the radio while the system architecture (SA) group
tackling the network architecture, EPC. LTE’s performance was evaluated in 2007.
The evaluation showed LTE’s ability to meet the targets for peak data rates, cell
edge user throughput, spectrum efficiency, as well as VoIP and multimedia broadcast
multicast service (MBMS) performance.
In December 2007, 3GPP approved the first full set of specifications for LTE. In 2008,
it made a functional freeze on the content of the specifications [20]. Functional freeze
means that new functionalities can not be added but the agreed content will be fi-
nalized in a later release. The functional freeze ended in December 2008. After the
functional freeze, the standard had all the content ready for a protocol freeze, which
guaranteed backward compatibility. In March 2009, the backward-compatibility ver-
ification was completed with the 3GPP Release 8 specifications. The LTE specifica-
tions is planned to disallow any changes before the actual roll-out.
The world’s first commercial LTE network was launched in December 2009 by Telia-

Sonera in Sweden and Norway [4]. The actual downlink (DL) and uplink (UL) peak
data rates are 42.7 Mb/s and 5.3 Mb/s with a delay of 37 msec, which are not close to
the specified requirements, 100 Mb/s and 50 Mb/s with a delay of 5 msec. However,
this performance is better than some wired internet service providers (ISP) service
that normally is 5Mb/s DL and 1Mb/s UL. Although the LTE specifications are
still a 3G-related standard in terms of, for example the peak data rate, it is 3GPP’s
roadmap to the 4G requirements.
2.1.2 Standardization
The official LTE standards are composed of technical specifications (TS) and technical
reports (TR) published by 3GPP. All 3GPP specifications have a specification number
consisting of 4 or 5 digits (e.g. 09.02 or 29.002). The first two digits define the
series [21]. For series numbered from 1 to 13, two more digits are allowed. For series
from 21 to 55, three more digits are assigned. The specific application of LTE appears
mostly in series 36. Table 1 provides the scope of the 36-series technical specifications
and the associated 3GPP group responsible to maintain it.
Table 1: LTE technical specifications
Specification index Description of contents 3GPP group

TS 36.1xx Equipment requirements such as termi- RAN 4 3GPP
nals, base stations and repeaters
TS 36.2xx Physical layer RAN 1 3GPP
TS 36.3xx Layers 2 and 3: MAC, RLC, PDCP and RAN 2 3GPP
RRC
TS 36.4xx Infrastructure communications RAN 3 3GPP
TS 36.5xx Conformance testing RAN 5 3GPP
The following documents that describe the overall network architecture as well as
general procedures such as network attachment, session setup and mobility are main-
tained by the SA2 3GPP group:
– TS 23.401, general packet radio service (GPRS) Enhancements for E-UTRAN Ac-
cess
– TS 23.402, Architecture Enhancements for Non-3GPP Accesses
Moreover, 3GPP also produced a number of TRs, which record working assumptions
and agreements until actual specifications are made available:
– TR 24.801: 3GPP System Architecture Evolution; CT WG1 Aspects

– TR 29.804: CT WG3 Aspect of 3GPP System Architecture Evolution
– TR 29.803: 3GPP System Architecture Evolution; CT WG4 Aspects
– TR 32.816: Telecommunication Management; Study on Management of LTE and
SAE
– TR 32.820: Telecommunication Management: Study on Charging Aspects of 3GPP
System Evolution
– TR 33.821: Rationale and Track of Security Decisions in LTE/SAE
All documents can be found in http://www.3gpp.org/ftp/Specs. A list of the 36-

series documents, the 53 TSs and 20 TRs, in effect as of November 2009 is provided
in Annex A at the end of this report.
2.2 WiMAX background

WiMAX-compliant systems are based on two system profiles [22, 23]: fixed and mo-
bile. The standard for the fixed system profile is IEEE 802.16d-2004 and the standard
for the mobile system profile is IEEE 802.16e-2005, which is actually an amendment
to the 802.16d-2004 standard to support mobility. The 802.16 standards define the
PHY layer and the MAC layer (which is also known as the air interface) of a WiMAX
system in an OSI model. The end-to-end networking of WiMAX networks is sep-
arately defined by the WiMAX Forum network working group (NWG). To ensure
interoperability of WiMAX Forum certified products [24], a subset of 802.16 features
called a system profile is also defined.
This document focuses on the current WiMAX implementation, mobile WiMAX.

Section 2.2.1 provides more information on the mobile WiMAX evolution while Sec-
tion 2.2.2 gives an overview of the IEEE 802.16 standardization.
2.2.1 Evolution
As mentioned earlier, mobile WiMAX is an IEEE 802.16-based technology main-
tained by the WiMAX Forum. The goal of the WiMAX forum is to develop end-
to-end specifications for interworking and interoperability and its specifications help
promote compatibility of WiMAX equipment and systems [25]. WiMAX Release 1.0
certification began in January 2007 [26, 27].
The mobile WiMAX specifications are divided into three stages:
– The stage-1 specifications specify recommendations and requirements for WiMAX

networks from the perspective of network operators who intend to deploy compati-
ble networks. It provides information such as business/usage scenarios, deployment

models, functional requirements and performance guideline for the end-to-end sys-
tem [28].
– The stage-2 documents specify how the stage-1 requirements are implemented at
the architecture level [29].
– The stage-3 specifications details protocols and procedures required to implement
the architecture-level specifications [30].
The most current version of the specification is Release 1.5. Further performance
enhancements are planned for mobile WiMAX Release 2.0 which is based on the
IEEE 802.16m standard.
Release 1.0 of the mobile WiMAX standard is based on the IEEE 802.16e-2005 stan-
dard. It reduces the scope of the IEEE802.16e-2005 standard to a smaller set of design
choices for implementation. The WiMAX Forum does scope reduction by specifying
system profiles which define a subset of mandatory and optional features from the
IEEE802.16e-2005 standard [31, 32]. Mobile WiMAX Release 1.5 is based on the
IEEE 802.16-2009 standard and is an extension of Release 1.0 [33]. Mobile WiMAX
Release 2.0 is based on the IEEE 802.16m standard and is backward compatible with
Release 1.0 and Release 1.5.
2.2.2 Standardization
While 3GPP was developing solutions to meet the requirements of mobile broadband
accesses, the IEEE 802 LAN/MAN standards committee (LMSC) also made a similar
attempt. In the late 1990s, the IEEE 802.16 WG was set up to standardize BWAs
for wireless metropolitan area networks (WMAN). At the same time, the IEEE 802
LMSC also established the IEEE 802.20 WG to work on a nearly identical focus of the
IEEE 802.16 WG. Table 2 [34] shows the status of the IEEE 802 WGs and technical
advisory groups (TAGs), in effect as of 2009. The relationship between some of the
IEEE 802 standards is shown in Figure 4 [35]. The IEEE 802 standards define only
the data link and PHY layers of the OSI reference model.

Table 2: IEEE 802 WGs and TAGs
Status in
Number Name
April 2009
802.1 Higher Layer LAN Protocols WG Active
802.2 Logical Link Control WG Inactive
802.3 Ethernet WG Active
802.4 Token Bus WG Disbanded
802.5 Token Ring WG Inactive
802.6 Metropolitan Area Network WG Disbanded
802.7 Broadband TAG Disbanded
802.8 Fiber Optic TAG Disbanded
802.9 Integrated Services LAN WG Disbanded
802.10 Security WG Disbanded
802.11 Wireless LAN WG Active
802.12 Demand Priority WG Disbanded
802.13 (Not used)
802.14 Cable Modem WG Disbanded
802.15 Wireless Personal Area Network (WPAN) WG Active
802.16 Broadband Wireless Access WG Active
802.17 Resilient Packet Ring WG Active
802.18 Radio Regulatory TAG Active
802.19 Coexistence TAG Active
802.20 Mobile Broadband Wireless Access (MBWA) WG Active
802.21 Media Independent Handoff WG Active
802.22 Wireless Regional Area Networks WG Active

Figure 4: IEEE 802 standards
The IEEE 802.16 standard has evolved through various editions. Initially, the focus
of the standard was on line of sight (LOS) operations for fixed wireless subscriber sta-
tions. Since the first publication of the standard in 2001, the scope has been expanded
to cover non line of sight (NLOS) scenarios, supporting mobility and accounting for
higher data rates as shown in Table 3 [36]. The IEEE 802.16e-2005 specification [5]
is a supplement to the IEEE 802.16d-2004 specification [37], and so the two are com-
binedly referred to as IEEE 802.16-2004&E. The IEEE 802.16-2004&E specifies five
types of physical layers. WiMAX considers only OFDM and OFDMA physical layers
of the IEEE 802.16-2004&E standard [38].
The most current IEEE 802.16 version is IEEE 802.16-2009 [39], which is amended
by IEEE 802.16j-2009 [40] for multihop relay. The IEEE 802.16-2009 standard was
published in May 2009 and is the second revision of IEEE 802.16 following IEEE
802.16-2001 and IEEE 802.16d-2004. It consolidates previous IEEE 802.16 revisions:
IEEE802.16d-2004, IEEE 802.16e-2005, IEEE 802.16-2004/Cor1-2005, IEEE 802.16f-
2005 and IEEE 802.16g-2007 [41]. The IEEE 802.16m is currently in draft stage
and being designed to meet the requirements of IMT-Advanced. Its goal is to push
data rates up to 100 Mb/s for mobile subscribers and 1Gb/s for fixed accesses while
maintaining backward compatibility with existing WiMAX radios [26].

Table 3: Evolution of the IEEE 802.16 standard
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3 LTE
This section presents the EPS evolution as introduced in Release 8 of the 3GPP
standard [42]. The section starts with a system overview a better understanding
of the entire network. Next, it briefly presents the protocol layers of the EPS and
then finally, concentrates on the MAC layer and the PHY layer of the air interface.
The referenced specifications are cited when appropriate through the section when
appropriate.
3.1 System overview

Figure 5 [43] shows an EPS architecture. The system elements specific to the EPS are
EPC (MME/S-GW) and E-UTRAN as shown in Figure 6 [44]. The EPC comprises
a mobile management entity (MME) and a serving gateway (S-GW) together with a
packet data network gateway (PDN-GW). The E-UTRAN contains only evolved node
Bs (eNBs). The communication between user equipments (UEs) and eNBs is one-to-
one but communication between eNBs and EPCs are meshed (meaning that all eNBs
and EPCs may be linked together). Section 3.1.1 provides a more in-depth view of
EPC and E-UTRAN and the corresponding interfaces are described in Section 3.1.2.
Figure 5: EPS architecture

Figure 6: EPS overall architecture
The EPS network architecture is based on the transmission control protocol (TCP)/IP
protocol to enable personal computer (PC)-like services. The architecture is designed
with the goal of supporting packet-switched (PS) traffic, which allows internet services
such as VoIP and multimedia messaging. The result is a simplified flatter architecture
that is in contrast to a multi-node network architecture of the 3G systems as shown
in Figure 7 [45]. The architecture is considered simplified whereby most of the radio
network controller (RNC) functionalities are merged with the NodeB to create the
eNB [1]. Also, all of the UMTS core network functions go into two elements, the MME
for control signaling and the logical gateways (S-GW/PDN GW) for data signaling.
Since the EPC is all-IP, all services (including voice) are delivered as PS traffic. As
a result, the CS part of the UMTS system is abandoned.
The functional split between eNB and EPC is shown in Figure 8 [44]. The functions
of an EPC, an eNB and an UE are summarized on the figure. The white boxes inside
the eNB, MME and GWs depict the functional entities of the control plane and the
shaded boxes depict the protocol layers of the air interface. The protocol architecture
of the air interface is split into two planes, the user and control plane. Generally, the
user plane carries traffic signaling while the control plane carries control signaling.
3.1.1 EPS network elements

This section briefly describes the network entities of the EPC and E-UTRAN as
shown in Figure 6. Only the network nodes specific to EPS are presented here.

Figure 7: From UMTS to evolved UMTS
3.1.1.1 EPC
The EPC is composed of several functional entities as shown in Figure 8. The main
role of a MME is to provide control-plane functions related to subscriber and session
management. In addition, the EPC has two logical gateway entities, the S-GW and
the PDN-GW.
MME A MME and a S-GW may be implemented in one physical node or separated
physical nodes. The MME [43] transfers only control signalling and hence, IP pack-
ets do no go through the MME. The main functions of a MME are idle-mode UE
reachability, tracking area list management, roaming, authentication, authorization,
PDN-GW/S-GW selection, bearer management, security negotiation and non-access
stratum (NAS) signalling.
S-GW A S-GW is the termination point of packet data transmission towards E-

UTRANs. For each UE associated with the EPS, there is only one single S-GW
serving at a giving point of time. There is no communication among S-GWs since
a S-GW is designed as an enforcement point that acts on notifications coming from
MMEs. The S-GW functions as a local mobility anchor forwarding and receiving
packets to and from eNBs and the serving UEs [46]. Since the S-GW is the anchoring
point for UEs travelling among 3GPP accesses, it provides data traffic in case of lawful
interception. It is responsible for storage of the context of the UEs and replication.

Figure 8: EPS feature distribution
PDN-GW Similar to an S-GW, a PDN-GW is the termination point of packet data

transmission towards packet data networks. It provides connectivity to external PDNs
such as the Internet or hosted services such as IP multimedia subsystem (IMS) and
packet-switched streaming service (PSS). The PDN-GW also operates as an anchor
for mobility between 3GPP and non-3GPP accesses such as WiMAX, 3GPP2 and
WLAN through various sets of interfaces. The PDN-GW serves several IP functions
such as address allocation, policy enforcement, packet filtering and routing [47, 48].
3.1.1.2 E-UTRAN
3GPP uses the traditional OSI model to define the air interface, E-UTRAN. eNBs
are connected to each other in a meshed way through the X2 interface to support
multiple cells while the individual eNB is responsible for its coverage area. Due to the
elimination of RNC in the E-UTRAN, eNB now has to implement both the NodeB
functions as well as control functions traditinally implemented in a RNC. Therefore,
the eNB provides the user-plane (PDCP/RLC/MAC/PHY) and control-plane (RRC)
protocols towards the UE, shown in Figure 8. Several main functions of the eNB
are header compression, ciphering and reliable delivery of packets. On the control

side, the eNB incorporates functions such as admission control and radio resource
management. The meshed network, E-UTRAN, provides the following functions
[43, 44]:
– Transfer of user data

– Radio channel ciphering and deciphering
– Integrity protection
– Header compression
– Mobility control functions
– Handover
– Paging
– Positioning
– Inter-cell interference coordination
– Connection setup and release
– Load balancing
– Distribution function for NAS messages
– NAS node selection function
– Synchronization
– MBMS function
– Rate enforcement and bearer level admission control
– Transport level packet marking
eNB The eNB is the only element interfacing with an UE in a LTE network. It
hosts a user plane to carry user data and a control plane to control the connection
between the UE and the network.
From a functional perspective, the eNB provides a set of legacy features related to
physical-layer procedures for transmission and reception over the air. This includes
radio channel modulation/demodulation and coding/decoding. Because of the fact
that an RNC’s function is integrated into the eNB, the eNB has to support functions
beyond the physical layer. According to the OSI model, the eNB provides layer-2
supports to ensure proper transfer of user data and layer-3 supports to route user-
plane data. For more information, refer to the 3GPP standard, [44] where all the
functions of the eNB are described in detail.
3.1.1.3 UE
As shown in Figure 8, the UE has the user-plane protocol layers, consisting of packet
data convergence protocol (PDCP), radio link control (RLC), MAC and PHY layers,
to connect to the eNB. The control plane contains the NAS layer and the RRC layer
for communication with the MME and eNB respectively. This 3GPP standard, [49],
defines five UE categories, differentiated by bit-rate capabilities. The UE categories

are shown in Table 4 [20]. Further terminal categories may be defined in later 3GPP
releases.
Table 4: UE categories
3.1.2 EPS interfaces

Interfaces connect logical nodes (elements) in an EPS network. Annex B lists most
of the interfaces defined for the EPS-integrated architecture (an example shown in
Figure 5) and is collected from several releases of TS 23.401. Because of the multi-
plicity of logical nodes in the architecture, the same interfaces have different names
or reliance on previous 3GPP systems in different releases of the standard.
Three new interfaces, S1, X2, and LTE-UE are defined exclusively for E-UTRAN.
All are functionally split into user plane and control plane for transferring user data
and control messages respectively. LTE-UE is the radio interface, connecting a UE to
its network. The X2 interface defines the user and control plane protocols for eNBs,
which are interconnected in a meshed fashion. The main role of X2 is to minimize
packet loss while the UE moves. Any unsent or unacknowledged packets queued in
the previous eNB are forwarded to the new eNB through the X2 interfaces. The S1
interface defines the user and control plane protocols for eNB communication with
the MME (S1-MME interface) and the S-GW (S1-U interface).

3.1.3 EPS protocol architecture
Figure 9 and Figure 10 [50] present the model introduced by the TS 24.301 standard
at the beginning of 2G [51] which is still being applied to the evolution of UMTS.
The structure is based on the principle that the layers and planes are logically inde-
pendent. This model presents two layers: the access stratum (AS) and the non access
stratum (NAS) that span over several entities (UE, E-UTRAN and EPC). This OSI-
like separation allows the standardization body to alter protocol stacks to fit further
requirements. For example, when 3G/UMTS was defined in 1999, the 2G/GSM
NAS layer was augmented to meet the requirement of the UMTS system. Similarly,
the broadband global area network (BGAN) system replaces the air interface of the
UMTS’s AS layer for transmission over satellites. The actual implementation of the
overall protocol stack may be analyzed by a packet analyzer such as the WireShark
software that has implemented some of the 3GPP TS 24.301 specification [52].
Figure 9: S1 and LTE-UE user plane
Generally, an AS layer corresponds to features linked to radio interfaces. For the

radio interface of an EPS, the AS features are supported by the PHY, MAC, RLC,
PDCP, and RRC protocol layers defined in documents TS 36.2xx and TS 36.3xx. For
the S1 and X2 interfaces, the AS features are defined in TS 36.41x and TS 36.42x
respectively.
As shown in Figure 11, the AS layers specific to the S1 and X2 interfaces are further
split into two main parts: the radio network layer and the transport network layer.
This separation allows independent development in the application part and transport
part of the system. The user and control planes for S1 and X2 are shown in Figure 12
and Figure 13 respectively [44].

Figure 10: S1 and LTE-UE control plane
Figure 11: Protocol model for S1 and X2 interfaces

Figure 12: S1 interface user and control planes
Figure 13: X2 interface user and control planes
In contrast, a NAS layer corresponds to functions that are independent of the access
technologies. For LTE, the NAS layer’s protocols are performed between an UE and
a MME. These protocols consist of the EPS mobility management (EMM) protocol
and the EPS session management (ESM) protocol. EMM is responsible for control
of mobility and security while ESM handles EPS bearer control.

3.1.4 E-UTRAN protocol architecture
The LTE radio interface is composed of the PHY, data link, and network layers. The
Data Link Layer (DLL) is implemented by the PDCP, RLC and MAC parts, while
the Network Layer (NL) is supported by the RRC protocol. Figure 14 [53] shows
the E-UTRAN protocols around the PHY layer and also indicates three categories
of information channels between protocol layers, the transmitter and the receiver.
They are the physical, transport and logical channels. SC-FDMA and OFDM are the
signal formats for the physical channels. Section 3.1.5 describes the channel structure
in more detail.
Figure 14: Radio interface protocol architecture
Figure 15 and Figure 16 [44] show the DLL structures at an eNB. A similar but
simplified layout also exists at the UE. One of the reasons for simplification is that
the UE is not required to serve multiple entities. Service access points (SAPs) are
marked with circles between sublayers. The SAPs between the MAC sublayer and
the RLC sublayer provide the logical channels while the SAPs between the PHY
layer and the MAC sublayer provide the transport channel. The logical channels are
characterized by the type of information transferred. Two types of logical channels
exist: control channels for control-plane data and traffic channels for user-plane data.
The transport channels are characterized by how the information is transferred over
the radio interface. The figures also show several instances of radio bearers. Since the
radio bearers consist of a defined combination of logical and transport channels, they
are also characterized by parameters describing the type of information and QoS.
On the user-plane side, one of those groupings may be VoIP, video stream and best-
effort file transfer, while on the control plane side, they are used for different control

signalling. In addition to prioritization relative to the parameters of the channels
and the bearers, the DL traffic is further scheduled and prioritized among UEs by
the MAC sublayer.
Figure 15: Downlink DLL structure
Figure 16: Uplink DLL structure

3.1.5 Channel structure
There are three types of channels: logical, transport and physical. Comparing the
LTE channels to the UMTS channels [54] shows that the logical channels are similar.
The transport and physical channels of LTE are simpler in structure compared to
those of UMTS.
Channels are used to transfer data among the PHY, MAC and RLC layers, as shown
in Figure 14. The physical-channel communication exchanges are in the form of
measurements – channel quality indication (CQI) and control commands that adapt
the radio transmission to the state of the channel – adaptive modulation and coding
(AMC). The PHY layer uses the transport channels to transfer data to the MAC layer.
The transport channels are defined by their transport format set, which specifies the
required processing options, such as channel coding, interleaving and rate matching.
The MAC layer assigns logical channels to be used by the RLC layer. A logical channel
is defined by the type of information it carries. The logical channels are further
divided into two groups: control channels for transfer of control-plane information
and traffic channels for transmission of user-plane information. Figure 17 [2] shows the
channels used in the DL while Figure 18 presents the channels for the UL. Multicast
channels are grayed out in Figure 17 because they are not being specified in Release
8 of the LTE standard.
Figure 17: Downlink channel mapping

Figure 18: Uplink channel mapping
3.2 PHY layer

LTE defines radio resources in both the time and frequency domains. In order to
support channel sensitive scheduling and to achieve low packet transmission latency,
a LTE transmission is based on the one-msec duration of a subframe, which is also
called transmission time interval (TTI). In the frequency domain, the PHY layer of
LTE uses OFDMA to support flexible bandwidth deployments in diverse spectrum
arrangements. LTE is designed to support bandwidths in increments of 180 kHz
starting from a minimum bandwidth configuration of 1.08 MHz. The PHY layer is
based on OFDMA in DL and SC-FDMA in UL. Both time division duplex (TDD)
and frequency division duplex (FDD) are specified to carry information.
The PHY layer provides data transport services for higher layers. Processing appli-
cable to the data depends on the quality of the channels in question. Section 3.2.2
uses the UL-SCH channel as an example to demonstrate a cross-layer model that
shows the processing and interaction of the PHY layer. An overview of the channel
processing is then presented using generic structures.

3.2.1 Time and frequency structures of radio resources
All LTE signals derive their timing from the basic time unit Ts [55]:
Ts = 1/(15000 × 2048) seconds
The following list summarizes the symbols that are used in the LTE specifications to
describe the PHY layer:
(k, l) Resource element with frequency-domain index k and time-domain

index l
Ts Basic time unit
Nsymb Number of symbols in a transmission time slot
DL
Nsymb Number of OFDM symbols in a downlink slot
UL
Nsymb Number of SC-FDMA symbols in an uplink slot
RB
NSC Resource-block size in the frequency domain, expressed as a number
of subcarriers
NT A Timing offset between uplink and downlink radio frames at an UE,
expressed in units of Ts
NRB Number of available RBs in a transmission link of a specific channel
bandwidth
BWchannel Channel bandwidth
BWconf ig Transmission bandwidth configuration (occupied bandwidth)
Δf Subcarrier spacing
In the LTE system, UL and DL data transmissions are scheduled on a one-msec

subframe basis as shown in Figure 19 and Figure 20 [55]. A subframe consists of
two consecutive equal-duration (0.5 msec) slots. A radio frame consists of 20 slots,
numbered from 0 to 19 or 10 sub-frames, numbered from 0 to 9.
Figure 19: Frame structure type 1

Figure 20: Frame structure type 2 (for 5 ms switch-point periodicity)
Three duplexing modes are supported: full-duplex FDD, half-duplex FDD, and TDD.
Figure 19 shows the frame structure that is applicable to FDD. In the half-duplex
FDD operation, a UE cannot transmit and receive at the same time while there are no
such restrictions in the full-duplex FDD mode. Figure 20 shows the frame structure
that is used for TDD.
Figure 21 [55] shows the relationship between UL and DL frames of an UE that uses
the type 1 frame. The transmission of a UL frame from the UE starts NT A × Ts
seconds before that of the corresponding DL frame to the UE. This timing offset is
adjusted for each UE to ensure that UL transmissions from multiple UEs arrive at
the serving eNB at the same time. In addition to the time-domain constrains on the
radio resource, LTE also has a set of frequency-domain constrains. As a result, LTE
assigns transmission recourses in time-frequency units, referred to as recourse blocks
(RBs).
All RBs in one of the available channel bandwidths constitute a resource grid. Each
entry in the resource grid is referred to as a resource element defined by the index pair
(k, l), where k and l are the indices in the frequency and time domain respectively.
RB
Therefore, a resource block consists of NSC × Nsymb resource elements [56] .
In the time domain, a RB has a 0.5-msec slot duration. Each slot is further divided
UL DL
into Nsymb SC-FDMA symbols or Nsymb OFDM symbols for the UL and the DL
respectively. Depending on the channel delay spread requirements, a slot consists of
7 or 6 symbols for the normal cyclic prefix (CP) and the extended CP respectively.
To preserve the slot timing of 0.5 msec, when the normal CP is used, the first symbol
in a slot has a longer CP than the remaining six symbols as shown in Table 5 [55].
LTE supports a set of six channel bandwidths as described in Table 6 [55]. The
relationship between BWchannel and BWconf ig is shown in Figure 22 [56,56]. BWconf ig
RB
is given by BWconf ig = NRB × NSC × Δf . It is smaller than BWchannel to allow a
guard band preventing out-of-band radiation.

Figure 21: UL and DL resource grid

Table 5: Slot structure for normal and extended cyclic prefix
Table 6: Resource block characteristics

Figure 22: Mapping of a resource grid

3.2.2 PHY layer model
The PHY layer offers data transport services to higher layers by performing the
following functions [57]:
– Error detection on the transport channel and indication to higher layers

– Forward error correction (FEC) encoding/decoding of the transport channel
– Hybrid ARQ soft-combining
– Rate matching of the coded transport channel to physical channels
– Mapping of the coded transport channel onto physical channels
– Power weighting of physical channels
– Modulation and demodulation of physical channels
– Frequency and time synchronisation
– Radio characteristics measurements and indication to higher layers
– MIMO antenna processing/ transmit diversity/ beamforming
– Radio frequency (RF) processing
Access to these services is through the use of transport and physical channels. The
combination of services varies according to the quality of the channel in question.
Each set of transport and physical channels, therefore, offers a unique combination
of services and baseband processing.
Figure 23 [57] uses the UL-SCH channel as an example to show basic baseband
processing in terms of operations. The processing chain is divided into two parts: the
transport-channel and physical-channel processing. Section 3.2.2.1 gives an overview
on the operations of the transport-channel processing chain while Section 3.2.2.2
focuses on the physical-channel processing chain.
Furthermore, Figure 23 gives a cross-layer model of the physical layer to capture the
characteristics of the physical layer from the point of view of higher layers. The pro-
cessing steps that are configurable by the higher layers are highlighted in blue. In the
case of an UL transmission, the signaling of transport format and resource allocation
is partly made at the network side. The network transports this information to the
UE over the air. The information may be multiplexed with the hybrid automatic re-
peat request (HARQ) information and then used by the uplink transmission control
in the UE to configure the physical-channel processing.
One transport-block of data is delivered to/from the physical layer every TTI. In
the UE side, after adding cyclic redundancy check (CRC), channel coding is applied
according to the implicit information given by the combination of transport format
and resource assignment. Depending on the HARQ type, the HARQ may have control
over coding and rate matching (RM). The transport data is then handled by the
physical-channel processing according to the UL transmission control in the UE. On
the network side, the MAC scheduler uses indications such as channel state and

Figure 23: Physical layer model for UL-SCH transmission
error indications to configure the physical-channel processing of both the UE and the
network side.
3.2.2.1 Transport-channel processing
Major operations supported by different transport channels are summarized in figures

24, 25 and 26 [58]. The operations that are common to all transport channels, except
the BCH, are as follows:
– Transport block CRC attachment
– Code block segmentation and code block CRC attachment
– Channel coding of data and control information
– Rate matching
– Code block concatenation
The code block segmentation and concatenation steps are used for large-size infor-
mation blocks. Block sizes used on the BCH are small; so the segmentation and
concatenation steps are not required for the BCH processing.
The UL channel has two additional operations: data and control multiplexing as
well as channel interleaving. Data and control information is multiplex to ensure
the presence of the control information on both slots in a subframe. The channel
interleaver is specified for the frequency diversity when hopping is enabled in a UL [2].

Figure 24: Transport channel processing for DL-SCH, PCH and MCH
Figure 25: Transport channel processing for BCH

Figure 26: Transport channel processing for UL-SCH
The major channel coding schemes are summarized in tables 7 and 8 [58]. Turbo
coding is used for large data packets from DL and UL data transmission, paging and
MBMS transmissions. A tail biting convolutional code, a repetition code or a block
code are used for DL/UL control (DCI, UCI, CFI and HI) and broadcast control
(BCH).

Table 7: Channel coding schemes for transport channels
Table 8: Channel coding schemes for control informations

3.2.2.2 Physical-channel processing
After transport-channel processing, the coded sequence of bits then go through the
physical-channel processing procedures as shown in Figure 27 [55].
Figure 27: Overview of uplink physical-channel processing
Unlike the UL transmission chain shown above, the DL transmission chain supports
transmission diversity as shown in Figure 28 (for the case of a processing chain with
two transmit antennas) [55]. The transmit diversity scheme in the LTE system is
defined in terms of layer mapping and precoding.

Figure 28: Overview of physical channel processing for two transmit antennas
39
Scrambling The scrambling step reduces the effect of fading that disrupts data
transport. Scrambling is applied to all of DL and UL physical channels, except the
physical random access channel (PRACH). All DL channels, except the MCH, have
transport-channel specific scrambling such that the scrambling sequences used in one
cell are different from the neighbour cells. This ensures interference randomization
among cells. All MCH channels of the cells involved in a specific multicast broad-
cast signal frequency network (MBSFN) transmission have a common scrambling
sequence. The scrambling sequences used in the UL are UE-specific.
Modulation Modulation of scrambled bits generates complex-valued modulation

symbols. Depending on the physical channel considered, supported modulation
schemes vary. The UL channels support binary phase shift keying (BPSK), QPSK,
16- quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) and 64-QAM while the DL channels
support QPSK, 16-QAM and 64-QAM.
OFDMA LTE uses OFDMA in the DL and SC-FDMA in the UL [2, 17]. The use
of SC-FDMA results in reduction of peak-to-average power ratio which translates to
decreased battery consumption in mobile terminals. The trade-off, however, is the
increased complexity in both mobile and base-station design. The base station needs
adaptive equalization to mitigate multipath. The basic processing chain of a SC-
FDMA transmitter (as shown in Figure 29 [59]) is more complicated than an OFDMA
transmitter. The two transmitters, however, have a significant degree of similarity
since many of the functional blocks are common to both. Figure 29 duplicates a
portion of the physical-channel processing chain shown in figures 27 and 28 for
comparison.
Figure 29: Generic OFDMA and SC-FDMA processing chain
The transform precoding of Figure 27 corresponds to the M -point discrete Fourier

transform (DFT) operation in Figure 29.The size of DFT processor relates to the
number of scheduled subcarriers used for transmitting a symbol. It is defined as:
RB
M = Nsc ×α, where α is the number of resource block allocated for the transmission.

The resource element mapping operation corresponds to the subcarrier mapping in
Figure 29. It assigns DFT outputs to subcarriers of resource blocks. Subcarriers are
assigned according to localized or distributed resource blocks. In the localized type,
the DFT outputs are assigned to adjacent subcarriers. In the distributed type, the
data are spaced across the channel bandwidth. Although both types are specified in
the standard [55], the localized type is favoured by early LTE deployments [59].
The signal generation step corresponds to the remainder of the processing chain in
Figure 29: N -point inverse discrete Fourier transform (IDFT), Cyclic prefix & pulse
shaping and radio front-end (RFE). The sizes of IDFT processor, N , supported by the
LTE systems are specified in the E-UTRAN BS standard [56] and shown in Table 9.
The cyclic prefix addition provides multipath mitigation. The pulse shaping step
prevents spectral regrowth. The RFE converts digital signal to analog and then to
RF.
Table 9: OFDMA parameters
Layer mapping and precoding Layer mapping assigns the complex-valued modu-
lation symbols to one of several transmission layers, and precoding transforms the
symbols on each layer for transmission on antenna ports. The two steps are related
to transmission diversity and spatial multiplexing. The transmission diversity allows
improvement of link performance and reduces delays introduce by scheduling [60].
LTE employs the space frequency block coding (SFBC) as a transmission diversity
scheme.
Multiple transmitting antennas in combination with multiple receiving antennas are

used to create spatial multiplexing which increases data rate. The spatial multiplexing
allows transmission of different data streams simultaneously on the same RB. The
data streams can belong to one user (SU-MIMO) or to different users (MU-MIMO).
The SU-MIMO increases the data rate of one user while the MU-MIMO increases
overall capacity. LTE defines the following parameters for the spatial multiplexing
[20]:
– For DL, up to four layers

– For UL, single layer
– For UL and DL, the MU-MIMO is supported
As a result, both the SU-MIMO and MU-MIMO schemes are supported by the DL
while the UL supports only the MU-MIMO scheme. Supporting only MU-MIMO
at UL reduces terminal complexity while taking advantage of two or more transmit-
ting antennas. The MU-MIMO scheme requires only one transmit antenna at UE
side. The UEs share the same resource block by applying mutually orthogonal pi-
lot patterns. The MU-MIMO is also referred to as spatial division multiple access
(SDMA).
3.2.3 Interaction with upper layers

Figure 30 [61] shows the data flow between the protocol layers in the time domain.
The MAC layer passes data to/from the PHY layer in one-msec TTI sub-frames. The
protocol layers work together to make effective use of radio recourses in the fixed time
period. Starting from the top of the protocol stack, the PDCP layer treats each IP
packet as a PDCP service data unit (SDU) and then adds a PDCP header to the
IP packet to make it a PDCP protocol data unit (PDU). Those PDCP PDUs are
then passed to the RLC layer for reassembly and/or segmentation. The relationship
between RLC SDUs and PDUs is configurable and defined in the radio interface
protocol [54]. Then, the MAC layer adds a MAC header and padding to the data.
The data is received as transport blocks (TBs) by the PHY layer. Finally, the TB is
allocated physical resource for transmission over the air. The IP packet is decoded
by following this process in the reverse order.

Figure 30: Time domain view of data transport

3.3 MAC layer
The MAC layer controls access to a shared medium (radio resources). To ensure
effective use of the radio spectrum in a fixed period of time (a TB), dynamic allocation
of the radio resources is made using the following functions [62].
– Mapping between logical channels and transport channels

– Multiplexing of MAC SDUs from one or different logical channels onto TBs to be
delivered to the physical layer on transport channels
– Demultiplexing of MAC PDUs from TBs delivered by the physical layer on trans-
port channels
– Scheduling information reporting
– Error correction through HARQ
– Priority handling between UEs by means of dynamic scheduling
– Priority handling between logical channels of one UE
– Logical channel prioritization
– Transport format selection
To ensure flexible spectrum assignment, protocol layers exchange management mes-

sages and the supporting eNB centrally controls the DL and UL spectrum. Because
of the DL and UL channel separation, the MAC layer is also designed uniquely for
both transport directions. Figure 31 [62] shows an overview of the MAC structure at
the UE side to illustrate the interaction of the MAC functions.
The MAC is mainly responsible for mapping logical channels and transport channels.
Variables of mapping are transport format selection such as coding and modulation,
which determine data rate and scheduling (time-slot allocation). On DL, the MAC
layer of the eNB specifies transport formats by sending the UE modulation coding
scheme (MCS) in each TB and the MCS is used by the UE to prepare the PHY
for the next TB. Transport formats are chosen according to MAC measurements
regarding the UE’s status and conditions. The UE sends MAC measurements to
the eNB using control messages. Once the MAC of the UE interprets the transport
format and schedule, it works in combination with the PHY to perform HARQ for
error recovery. The PHY is responsible for retention and recombination and the MAC
performs management and signalling of the HARQ process. An adaptive HARQ is
used for both UL and DL data transmissions. This means that modulation, coding
and resource allocation can change on retransmission. When a valid TB is available
from the HARQ process, the TB may need to be demultiplexed since it may contain
several channels.
For the UL direction, most of the DL MAC operations are reversed. The most sig-
nificant difference is the random-access process that is used for initial transmission.
There are two types of random accesses: contention based and non-contention based,

Figure 31: MAC structure overview, UE side
where the contention-based process is subject to failure while the other is not. Ta-
ble 10 [62] summarized the MAC functions in both transport directions of the UE
and eNB sides.

Table 10: MAC function location and direction association
MAC function UE eNB Downlink Uplink
Mapping between logical channels and X X X

transport channels X X X
X X
Multiplexing
X X
X X
Demultiplexing
X X
X X X
Error correction through HARQ
X X X
Transport format selection X X X
Priority handling between UEs X X X
Priority handling between logical
X X X
channels of one UE
Logical channel prioritization X X
Scheduling information reporting X X

4 WiMAX
This section presents mobile WiMAX as documented in IEEE 802.16-2004&E [5, 37],
WiMAX Forum Stage 2 and Stage 3 specifications for Release 1.0 Version 4, and
WiMAX Forum mobile system profile Release 1.0 [31]. Only the aspects of IEEE
802.16 standards that are relevant to mobile WiMAX will be discussed. Discrepan-
cies between different versions of the standards are common and so the referenced
specifications are cited when appropriate. The structure of this section is similar to
that of Section 3. It starts with an overall system-level description, then describes
protocol layers and finally, concentrates on the air interfaces: PHY and MAC layers.
4.1 System overview

The WiMAX network has simple and flat architecture when compared to other cel-
lular network architecture. WiMAX architecture also does not have to support any
backward compatibility with previous standards, such as LTE with UMTS and GSM.
It is composed of two parts: a radio network and a core network. The WiMAX ra-
dio network is called access service network (ASN) which consists of base stations
(BSs) and access services network gateways (ASN-GWs). The WiMAX core net-
work, connectivity services network (CSN), uses typical IP-network nodes such as an
authentication, authorization and accounting (AAA) server and a home agent (HA),
which acts similar to a dynamic host configuration protocol (DHCP) server in a wired
IP network.
4.1.1 Functional elements

Figure 32 [29] shows a more detailed reference model that defines functional elements
and reference points for interoperability between vendors. Functional entities are
grouped into three elements: mobile station (MS), ASN and CSN. A device that is
mobile WiMAX-enabled is denoted as MS. On the network side, mobile WiMAX in-
troduces two key elements: an ASN and a CSN which are comparable to a RAN and
a core network of a 3G network in terms of functionality. Functionally speaking, the
ASN handles all aspects of the radio interface to maintain connectivity between MSs
and the network. The CSN provides most of the backend functions to provide IP
connectivity to subscribers such as authentication, IP address management, billing
and mobility to the ASN. Generally, the ASN providers are also known as network ac-
cess providers (NAP) and the CSN providers are also called network service providers
(NSP). The NAP deploys radio networks while the NSP hosts network services such
as streaming and Internet accesses.

Figure 32: WiMAX system architecture
4.1.1.1 CSN
A CSN is defined as a set of network functions that provide IP connectivity to sub-

scribers [29]. It is typically an all-IP network based on standard IP protocols and
elements such as routers/switches, AAA servers, user databases and interworking
gateways. CSN is defined with the following functions:
– MS IP address and endpoint parameter allocation

– Internet access
– AAA proxy or server
– Policy and admission control based on user subscription profiles
– ASN-CSN tunneling support
– Billing and inter-operator settlement
– Inter-CSN tunneling for roaming
– Inter-ASN mobility
– WiMAX services such as location based services, connectivity for peer-to-peer ser-
vices, IP multimedia services and lawful intercept services

4.1.1.2 ASN
An ASN is defined with a set of network functions for providing wireless access to
subscribers. It comprises of network entities such as one or more BSs and one or
more ASN-GWs. A single ASN may connect to multiple CSNs and vice versa. This
architectural design allows the ASNs and CSNs to be owned by different business
entities. The defined set of network functions are mapped to a BS and an ASN-GW
according to three different profiles in Release 1.0 of the standard [29]: Profile A,
Profile B and Profile C. Some of the ASN functions are as follows:
– AAA message relay

– Network discovery and selection of preferred NSP for subscribers
– Providing layer-2 connectivity and relay functions to establish layer-3 connectivity
with a MS
– Radio resource management
– Mobility control functions: ASN anchor mobility, CSN anchor mobility and ASN-
CSN tunneling
– Paging
– Quality of Service
The distribution of ASN functions for Probile C is shown in Figure 33 [29] as an

example. The three ASN profiles are summarized as follows. Profile A separates
the function set among the BS and ASN-GW similar to a 3G RAN. The ASN-GW
acts as a central controller and serves several BSs. Therefore, most of the decision-
making tasks such as mobility control and radio resource management are handled
by the ASN-GW. Profile B groups the BS and ASN-GW into a single entity. This
implementation is similar to LTE’s E-UTRAN that merges the RNC and NodeB of
UMTS to create the eNB. Profile C, similar to Profile A, distributes the function
set among the BS and ASN-GW. The BS, however, are assigned with more decision-
making tasks.
BS The WiMAX BS is a logical entity that embodies a full instance of the WiMAX
MAC and PHY layers according to the IEEE 802.16-2004&E standard as well as some
ASN functions. A BS instance represents one sector with one frequency assignment.
One physical implementation of a BS may have multiple BS instances since the BS
is defined as a logical entity. A single BS is associated with exactly one ASN-GW
but it is required to have connectivity to several ASN-GWs for load balancing or
redundancy. Its key function is scheduling for UL and DL resource management [29].
ASN-GW The WiMAX ASN-GW is also a logical entity that represents an ag-
gregation of functions such as control-plane functions and security functions. Each
functional entity works with a corresponding function in a BS instance, a resident
function in a CSN or a function in another ASN. The ASN-GW functions may be

Figure 33: Functional view of ASN Profile C
decomposed into two groups: the enforcement point (EP) and the decision point
(DP) [29].
4.1.2 Reference points

A reference point (RP) [29] is a conceptual link that connects two groups of functions
reside in different functional entities such as ASN, CSN and MS or in different business
entities such as NAP or NSP. R6 to R8 RPs are called inter-ASN informative RPs
since they are between internal functional entities of an ASN and the other RPs are
called normative RPs. The following RPs are defined:
R1 : Defined between a MS and an ASN.

R2 : Defined between a MS and a CSN for authentication and IP host configuration
management of roaming procedures.
R3 : Defined between an ASN and a CSN to support AAA, policy enforcement and
mobility managements. It also transfers user data between the ASN and the
CSN.
R4 : Defined between two ASN-GWs. This interface defines mobility procedure
when a MS crosses an ASN boundary.
R5 : Defined between two CSNs for roaming procedures.
R6 : Defined between a BS and an ASN-GW.
R7 : Defined between a DP and an EP of an ASN-GW.
R8 : Defined between two BSs. This interface defines mobility procedures when a
MS crosses a BS boundary.
4.1.3 Protocol architecture

Figure 34 [25] shows the protocol layers of mobile WiMAX . IEEE 802.16e-2005 is
limited to the control/data-plane aspects of the radio interface. The IEEE 802.16
protocol layering consists of only the MAC layer (part of the link layer) and the
PHY layer. The management-plane functions are supplemented by IEEE 802.16f and
IEEE 802.16g. The WiMAX NWG adds radio access control and transport functions
to IEEE 802.16 to make an end-to-end system.
Figure 34: IEEE 802.16e-2005 protocol reference model

Figure 35: Protocol layer architecture for control, IP-CS and ETH-CS signal
Figure 35 [29] shows the end-to-end architecture and the protocol layers of a mobile
WiMAX network. Control signal are carried by the control protocol stack while data
signal are carried by the data paths. The PHY and MAC specification of IEEE 802.16
are used by the R1 RP between the MS and BS. The control signal are handled by
the IEEE 802.16 control layer (.16 Ctrl) at the R1 RP and by the control layers of
the ASN or CSN (ASN ctrl and CSN ctrl) at the rest of the network. The remainder
of the control protocol stack are provider-specific, as long as the implementations
comply with the mobile WiMAX specification.
Data, transmitted by the IP layer, are carried in messages called IP datagrams. IP

datagrams are transferred through the IP-convergence sublayer (IP CS) or Ether-
net (ETH) CS data paths. The IP CS carries IP datagrams directly in the payload
of 802.16 PDUs while the ETH CS needs to encapsulate IEEE 802.3 frames, which
carries the IP datagrams, in the payload of 802.16 PDUs. The generic routing en-
capsulation (GRE) is used to route traffic within an ASN.

4.1.4 Interaction between protocol layers of IEEE 802.16 and the
higher layer
To support a wide range of BWA applications, the MAC and PHY layers of IEEE
802.16 provides functions such as classification, resource allocation and burst profiles
[5, 37]. The 802.16 MAC provide multiple service types for the transport of protocols
such as IP protocol, IEEE 802.3 from the higher layer. Issues of transport efficiency
are addressed by adapting PHY parameters, such as modulation and coding schemes,
to facilitate the delivery of data with appropriate QoS constraints.
4.2 PHY layer

Mobile WiMAX organizes it radio resource in time-frequency building blocks which
are further described in Section 4.2.1. The duration and shape of transmission de-
pends on the amount of resource that the BS is assigned. OFDMA access technique
is used in both UL and DL transmissions. This access technique allows flexible band-
width deployment ranging from 1.25 MHz to 20 MHz. Although IEEE 802.16-2004&E
supports TDD, FDD and half-duplex FDD, most of the mobile WiMAX system pro-
files, defined in Release 1.0 [31], are based on TDD. Since this report is based on the
Release 1.0, Section 4.2.1 focuses on the TDD structure.
The PHY layer of mobile WiMAX offers a set of baseband processing which is cov-
ered in Section 4.2.2. Although IEEE 802.16-2004&E specifies several PHY layer
processing chains, mobile WiMAX uses just the OFDMA chain, which is also the
only processing covered by Section 4.2.2.

The WiMAX PHY layer is responsible for mapping modulated data symbols and
pilots onto subcarriers to form OFDMA symbols [5, 31, 37]. Several subcarriers are
grouped into subchannels. The subchannels are then organized into slots that are
used to form bursts. The DL/UL bursts from different users are mapped into frames.
Figure 36 [36] shows an example of a TDD frame that is divided into a DL subframe
and an UL subframe to accommodate both DL and UL traffic.
Mobile WiMAX supports a set of channel bandwidths (BW ), frame durations and
slot structures. Channel bandwidths can be a multiple of 1.25, 1.75, 2, or 2.75 MHz
to a maximum of 20 MHz. Table 11 lists the bandwidths, slot structures and frame
durations supported by mobile WiMAX. The frame structure is quite flexible in terms
of how multiple users are multiplexed. A single frame may contain bursts of variable
sizes and shapes. Burst allocations are controlled by the DL-MAP and UP-MAP
messages which are dynamic and change from frame to frame.

Figure 36: Example of TDD frame structure for mobile WiMAX
Table 11: WiMAX radio resource characteristic
A slot is the minimum resource allocation unit. It is defined in time-frequency dimen-

sions. The time dimension refers to the OFDMA symbol number and the frequency
dimension refers to the subchannel logical number. The definition of the slots dif-
fers for transmission directions (DL and UL) and subchannel schemes – partial usage
subchannel (PUSC), full usage subchannel (FUSC) and AMC.
As shown in Figure 36, each frame begins with a preamble, followed by a DL sub-
frame, a guard or a transmit/receive transition gap (TTG) and an UL subframe.
The downlink subframe starts with a preamble that is for one symbol duration. The
preamble enables physical-layer functions such as time/frequency synchronization and
initial channel estimation. The frame control header (FCH) follows the preamble to
provide frame configuration information such as the length of the DL-MAP message.

The DL-MAP, which follows the FCH, specifies the burst allocation for different users
in the downlink subframe and the location of the UL-MAP message. The UL-MAP
message specifies the burst allocation information for the next uplink subframe.
The UL subframe is made up of UL bursts from different users. A portion of the UL

subframe is set asides for MAC functions such as ranging, channel quality estimation
for CQI transfer to the BS scheduler and HARQ acknowledgements.
4.2.2 Physical-layer processing

In order to strengthen the robustness of communications in mobile wireless envi-
ronments, WiMAX supports several modulation and coding schemes that can be
configured on a burst-by-burst basis according to channel conditions. This is known
as adaptive modulation and coding (AMC). Figure 37 [5] shows a physical-layer pro-
cessing chain for the support of channel coding and modulation.
Figure 37: WiMAX PHY transmission chain
To effectively change the coding and modulation to the most appropriate ones, the
AMC techniques require awareness of channel quality which is usually provided by
a channel estimation process at the receiver and a feedback process to report the
estimate to the transmitter. For mobile WiMAX systems, a MS periodically report
channel status to the BS using CQI messages that provides feedback on the DL-
channel quality. For the UL, the BS makes a channel-quality estimate based on the
quality of the received signal. Then, the BS uses both the UL and DL estimates
to choose a coding and modulation scheme that makes the best use of the available
radio resources. A combination of modulation and coding scheme is defined as a
burst profile in mobile WiMAX. The following subsection details each block of the
processing chain.
4.2.2.1 Randomizing
Data from the MAC layer are first randomized or scrambled by using a pseudo-random
binary sequence (PRBS) generator. The randomizing process is applied to all data
on the DL and UL, except the FCH and preamble. The PRBS generator polynomial
is 1 + x14 + x15 and the period of the generator is 215 − 1. It is initialized on each
FEC block.

4.2.2.2 FEC
IEEE 802.16 [5, 37] specify several FEC methods as mandatory requirements or as
options. The mandatory coding method is convolutional coding (CC) and the optional
coding methods are convolutional turbo coding (CTC), block turbo coding (BCT)
and low density parity check (LDPC). Mobile WiMAX [31], however, requires CTC
to be mandatory.
HARQ is a variation of ARQ mechanisms and is implemented at the physical layer

together with FEC as shown in Figure 38 [5]. IEEE 802.16e-2005 defines two HARQ
techniques that are classified in terms of the combining method: chase and incremen-
tal redundancy. Release 1.0 mobile WiMAX chooses to support only chase combining
HARQ.
Figure 38: FEC and HARQ for WiMAX
4.2.2.3 Interleaver
The interleaving step is used to protect the transmission against fading. Interleaving
is usually used together with FEC to facilitate error correction. The encoded data
bits are interleaved by a block interleaver that is made of two steps [5, 37]. The first
step makes sure that adjacent coded bits are mapped to non-adjacent subcarriers.
The second step ensures that adjacent coded bits are mapped alternately to more or
less significant bits of the constellation. The two interleaving steps are defined by
two permutations.
4.2.2.4 Repetition
Repetition is described by the IEEE 802.16e-2005 [5] standard only for the OFDMA
physical layer processing. It is intended to further increase the signal margin over the
modulation and FEC mechanisms.
Two variables are used to control the repletion step: R is called the repetition factor
and K is the number of required slots before applying repetition. In short, the data
bits obtained after the interleaving step are divided into slots and each group of bits

designated for a slot is repeated R times to form R contiguous slots. The number
of allocated slots (NS ) is calculated as the followings for UL and DL transmissions
separately. For UL, NS is a whole multiple of R. For DL, NS is in the range of R × K
to R × K + (R − 1). For example, when R = 6 and K = 10, NS for the burst can be
from 60 to 65 slots. This repetition scheme only applies to QPSK modulation.
4.2.2.5 Modulation
Modulation schemes applied to UL and DL transmissions vary according to the chan-

nel state and are determined by the serving BS. QPSK, 16-QAM and 64-QAM are
mandatory for the DL while only QPSK and 16-QAM are mandatory for the UL.
4.2.2.6 OFDMA
Once the FEC encoding and modulation processing is done, the data bits are mapped
to OFDMA subcarriers and then put through a processing similar to that of Figure 29.
Subcarriers are assigned in groups known as subchannels.
Two types of subchannels are defined depending on the methods of grouping subcar-
riers. One is called the distributed-based subchannel, which selects subcarriers that
space across the channel bandwidth and then group the selected subcarriers together
to form a subchannel. The distributed-based subchannel is further divided into two
types: PUSC and FUSC. The PUSC is partially allocated to multiple transmitters
and the FUSC is fully allocated to one transmitter. The other subcarrier-grouping
method is called the adjacent-based subchannel or band AMC subchannel. It selects
subcarriers in adjacent frequencies.
Table 12 shows parameters supported by mobile WiMAX. The characteristics of an

OFDMA symbol are determined by the following primitive parameters:
– BW , the channel bandwidth

– n, sampling factor: This parameter is used to determine the sampling frequency
to bandwidth ratio, the subcarrier spacing and the useful symbol time. n is 8/7
for channel bandwidths that are a multiple of 1.75 MHz and 28/25 for channel
bandwidths that are a multiple of 1.25, 1.5, 2, 2.75 MHz.
– G, the guard time ratio or the CP to “useful” time ratio: IEEE 802.16e–2005 sup-
ports 1/32, 1/16, 1/8 and 1/4 while mobile WiMAX supports only 1/8.
Once the primitive parameters are specified, other parameters of Table 12 can be
derived. IEEE 802.16e–2005 specifies the support of several fast Fourier transform
(FFT) lengths: 128, 512, 1024 and 2048. Mobile WiMAX fixes its subcarrier spacing,
Δf that is set to 10.94 kHz and OFDMA symbol duration that is set to 102.9 μs [36].

Table 12: WiMAX OFDMA parameters
Parameter Unit Value

Channel bandwidth (BW) MHz 1.25 5 10 20
FFT size 128 512 1024 2048
Subcarrier spacing (Δf ) kHz 10.94
Useful symbol time (Tb ) μs 91.4
Guard time (Tg ) μs 11.4
OFDMA symbol time (TS ) μs 102.8
This subcarrier spacing supports delay spread up to 20 μs and mobility up to 120

km/h at 3.5 GHz. The other parameters are calculated using the following equations:
– NF F T , FFT size: NF F T = (n × BW )/Δf

– Tb , useful symbol time: Tb = 1/Δf
– Tg , guard time: Tg = Tb × G
– TS , OFDMA symbol time: TS = Tb + Tg
4.2.2.7 Advanced antenna technologies
Mobile WiMAX uses multiple antenna technologies and diversity schemes to increase
throughput and reliability of transmissions. A space time coding (STC) is chosen
as an optional transmission diversity scheme to provide higher order diversity in DL
transmissions. Multiple antennas working together with spatial division multiple
access (SDMA) are used in the DL and only SDMA is used in the UL. SDMA is also
referred to as the collaborative spatial multiplexing in WiMAX.

4.3 MAC layer
Figure 39 [37] shows data unit exchange in general. There are two types of data
units involved: protocol data unit (PDU) and service data unit (SDU). A PDU is
transferred between peer entities of the same protocol layer. It is the data unit
generated from a SDU unit for the next lower layer in the downward direction. For
example shown on Figure 40, a MAC SDU is appended with a MAC header and a
CRC to form a MAC PDU for the PHY layer. In the upward direction, it is the data
unit received from the previous lower layer. A SDU is obtained by stripping the header
and CRC from the PDU. It can be exchanged directly between two adjacent protocol
layers. It is received from the previous higher layer on the downward direction and
sent to the next higher layer on the upward direction.
In general, the data unit between the MAC sublayers and the PHY layer of WiMAX
air interface (shown in Figure 34) follows the same naming convention. The MAC
layer passes data to/from the PHY layer in each burst interval. A MAC PDU is of
variable length, which depends on the amount of carried payload. When packing is
turned on for a connection, a PDU can contain multiple SDU units.
Figure 39: PDU and SDU in a protocol stack

MSB
LSB
MAC header MAC SDU(s) CRC
Figure 40: MAC PDU format
Figure 41 shows the PHY and MAC layers for WiMAX. The MAC layer includes
the service-specific convergence sublayer (CS) that interfaces to higher layers, the
MAC common part sublayer (CPS) that carriers out the key MAC functions and
the security sublayer (privacy sublayer) that locates below the CPS. The MAC layer
is defined to enable simultaneous connections to shared resources in the OSI model.
This objective is supported by MAC-layer functions such as reliable transfer of frames
and coordination attempts to shared radio resources from multiple subscribers in a
mobile WiMAX network. To support those tasks, the CS classifies transmitting data
and associates each application stream with a particular connection. This connection-
oriented feature of mobile WiMAX ensures tight control of resource allocation and
QoS for individual applications. The CPS of a BS is responsible for the performance
of the overall system while supporting the QoS of individual connections.
In addition to traditional layer-2 functions of the OSI model, the security sublayer of
the mobile WiMAX MAC layer provides subscribers with privacy and authentication
across the broadband network. Functions of the three sublayers are further described
in the following sub-sections.
4.3.1 Service-specific convergence sublayer

The CS resides on the top of the other two MAC sublayers. It performs the following
functions to utilize the services of the MAC CPS via the MAC SAP [5, 37]. The CS
accepts higher layer protocol PDUs and processes the external-network data to finally
generate CS PDUs to the appropriate MAC SAP. Processing includes classifying the
external network data to associate them to the proper MAC service flow identifier
(SFID) and connection identifier (CID).
The IEEE 802.16e-2005 standard defines two CSs to interface with two types of
external networks: asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) network and packet network.
However, the WiMAX Forum Mobile System Profile Release 1.0 [31] excludes the
ATM CS; hence, a discussion of the ATM CS is omitted. The packet CS is defined for
packet services such as IPv4, IPv6, Ethernet and virtual local area network (VLAN).

Figure 41: WiMAX PHY and MAC layers protocol stack
The classifying and associating process enable QoS and bandwidth allocation services
provided by the CPS layer.
In addition, the CS is defined with optional functions such as payload header sup-
pression (PHS) to enhance efficiency by suppressing payload header information and
rebuilding suppressed payload header information. The packet CS supports robust
header compression (ROHC) and enhanced compressed real-time transport protocol
(ECRTP) header compression.
4.3.2 MAC common part sublayer

The MAC CPS is the main body of the MAC layer. It provides the core MAC
functionalities, such as resource allocation & QoS management, connection & session
processing, data transfer processing and ARQ [5,37]. Similar to a cellular system, the
CPS is designed to support point-to-multipoint architecture. The BS in a WiMAX
network acts as the central controller handling multiple independent users simultane-
ously. On the downlink, the downlink scheduler of the BS manages bandwidth. The
uplink bandwidth is shared among all of the MSs in the same cell or sector and so

that it is allocated by the BS to the MSs upon request. The CPS of the BS performs
bandwidth management based on service requirements. A service request is mapped
to a service flow which is unidirectional and is associated with a negotiated set of
QoS parameters from upper layer applications. Some of the QoS parameters are
bandwidth and delay. A 32-bit SFID is used to identify the service flow within the
MS. The scheduler of the BS arranges the network resources to meet the performance
demand according to the requested QoS parameters.
A WiMAX network is called connection-oriented since all services flows are mapped
to connections at the MAC layer. Connections are referenced with a 16-bit CID.
When data are sent between the MS and the BS, the service flow is implicitly defined
by the CID. Therefore, the SFID is not carried in the data packets between the MS
and the BS.
Since the CPS is responsible for overall connection and session processing, it defines
a complete messaging structure to achieve this function. Upon entering the network,
the MS is assigned with different types of management connections that reflect dif-
ferent QoS performances depending on the management requirements. There are
three types of management connections: basic, primary and secondary. The basic
connection is for the transfer of short and time-critical management messages. The
primary connection is used to exchange longer and more delay-tolerant messages.
The secondary management connection is used for the transfer of standard-based
management messages. Each connection is associated with a particular CID. In addi-
tion, other CIDs are defined for network operations such as initial ranging, multicast
broadcast and etc.
To deliver data to the lower layer, the MAC CPS processes the MAC SDUs received
from the CS through the MAC SAP and constructs the MAC PDUs. Other advanced
features such as HARQ, AMC and fast feedback schemes are designed to enhance
throughput and coverage of an 802.16-based network.
4.3.3 Security sublayer

The security sublayer is built into the WiMAX radio-interface protocol stack and
has two component protocols: encapsulation protocol and privacy key management
(PKM) protocol. The encapsulation protocol applies cryptographic transformation
to MAC PDUs traveling between a MS and a BS. This provides users with privacy or
confidentiality across the network. The PKM protocol provides secured distribution
of keying data from the BS to the MS. This secures network services from theft and
also provides authentication [5, 37].

5 Comparison of LTE and WiMAX
This section briefly compares the overall systems of LTE and WiMAX, then the
protocol layers and finally, the air interfaces. Table 13 summarizes the comparison.
5.1 System overview

Some similarities among the LTE and WiMAX system architectures are as follows.
Both WiMAX and LTE are architecturally split into two parts: a radio network and
a core network. Similar to LTE, mobile WiMAX is also an all-IP system that carries
only IP packets.
However, The WiMAX ASN consists of BSs and ASN-GWs while the LTE radio net-
work consists of only eNBs. For LTE, the rationale behind eliminating the RNC is
likely to reduce latency by distributing the RNC processing load into multiple eNBs.
As a result, set up times from idle can meet the performance requirement of less than
100 msec specified in [63]. In contrast to the LTE’s radio network, mobile WiMAX al-
lows developers three ASN configurations. A possible advantage of separated entities
is that the network capacity can grow independently. Consequently, operators may
implement the air-interface entities topologically separated or collocated depending
on the considered bandwidth latencies and congestion. WiMAX’s core network is
also slightly different from LTE’s. The WiMAX core network, CSN, uses typical IP-
network nodes. In contrast, LTE defines a core network called EPC which includes
unique entities such as MME and S-GW.
5.1.1 Functional elements

Despite the different evolution paths taken by the WiMAX Forum and 3GPP, the LTE
EPS architecture still resembles the WiMAX architecture in terms of functionality
set [12].
– BS and eNB: Functionally speaking, a BS and an eNB are similar. Both of them
are the only elements interfacing with subscriber devices. The main functions that
relate to the creation of connectivity are radio resource management and scheduling.
They provide air interfaces into PS networks by IP tunneling to an access gateway.
The significant difference is the physical-layer processing since the BS is based on
IEEE 802.16 and the eNB is based on 3GPP releases.
– MME/S-GW and ASN-GW: Functionally speaking, the MME/S-GW and the ASN-
GW are similar since both of them provide mobility between radio interfaces (eNB
in LTE and BS in WiMAX), security and QoS functions. The differences are:
LTE defines the MME for control-plane traffic and the S-GW for user-plane traffic
while WiMAX uses the ASN-GW to handle both traffic types. The protocols and

messages used between the radio interfaces differ as well since they are defined by
corresponding specifications.
– PDN-GW and HA: The functions of the PDN-GW and the HA are similar since
both of them provide mobility between access gateways (S-GW in LTE and ASN-
GW in WiMAX). Differences in protocols arise again from corresponding specifi-
cations.
5.1.2 Interfaces and reference points

The RPs of WiMAX and the interfaces of LTE are functionally similar since both of
them connect network elements.
– Communications between radio interfaces (BS in WiMAX and eNB in LTE): R8

and X2 eliminate the need to route traffic through a core network when appropriate.
This reduces the latency in handovers and the dependency to the core network.
– Communications between the radio and the core network: S1 is defined for LTE
and R6 is defined for WiMAX.
– Mobility support: LTE and WiMAX provide mobility procedures for seamless con-
nectivity. For LTE, S1-U is for handovers among eNBs, S2 is for handovers to
non-3GPP access technologies, S10/S4 are for handovers to 3GPP access networks
and S5 is for handovers to different gateways. For WiMAX, R8 and R6 are for
handovers among BSs, R4 is for handovers to different ASNs and R2/R5 are for
handovers to different CSNs.
5.1.3 Protocol architecture

Figure 42 [26] shows the protocol stacks of LTE next to that of WiMAX and further
illustrates the similarities and differences between the two. LTE has more layers and
proprietary protocols comparing to WiMAX. The tunneling protocols used by LTE
and WiMAX to encapsulate user data are also different. WiMAX uses GRE while
LTE uses the GPRS tunnelling protocol (GTP) and the proxy mobile IP (PMIP)-
based S5/S8.
Figure 42 shows the protocol stacks only for user data and a comparison of the control-
plane protocol stacks is given as the followings. LTE defines two control-plane stacks
for subscribers. One is for RRC messages between an UE and an eNB and the other is
for NAS messages between an UE and a MME. In comparison, a WiMAX subscriber
does not communicate directly with an ASN-GW. The MS uses procedures defined
by IEEE 802.16 to communicate with the BS and the BS talks to the ASN-GW using
a R6 RP defined by the WiMAX forum.
Both IEEE and 3GPP assume sublayering for their wireless systems because the DLL
design of the OSI model provides the functional and procedural means to transfer

Figure 42: Protocol layer architectures for LTE and WiMAX
data only between wired entities such as the Ethernet. The OSI-layered modeling is
not sufficient on its own to cope with the scarcity and harshness of radio medium.
Another reason for sublayering comes from the need to accommodate changes or
evolutions in the PHY layer [64].
Although sublayers are defined differently among different standards, the sublayers
are divided according to the higher-level services and functions. Generally, the DLLs
of most wireless standards are divided into at least two sublayers. The DLL functions
that are constrained by the specific characteristics of the corresponding PHY are
grouped in one layer while the medium-independent functions are in the other.
E-UTRAN groups the DLL functions independent of the physical aspects of the
radios interface such as in-sequence delivery into the RLC and PDCP layers, while
the medium-dependent functions such as scheduling are part of the MAC layer. The
sublayered model dates back to when IEEE defined the LAN standardization. The
IEEE 802 network is based on the logical link control (LLC) sublayer, a uniform
interface for the data link service. Beneath the LLC sublayer is the MAC sublayer
designed for the particular medium such as the Ethernet and WiFi [65]. Similarly,
WiMAX puts the DLL independent functions into the CS and security sublayer while
the dependent funcitons into the MAC CPS.

5.1.4 Interaction between protocol layers
Both WiMAX and LTE are designed to support a wide range of BWA applications. To
support these varieties of services, LTE defines the logical channels to carry different
types of information and the transport and physical channels to dynamically process
the data according to performance requirements. The MAC and PHY layers of IEEE
802.16 provide similar functions in the forms of classification, resource allocation and
burst profiles.
5.2 PHY layer

Both LTE and WiMAX are defined to support a wide range of bandwidths. This is
made possible by using OFDMA modulation and resource allocation schemes that are
scalable in both time and frequency domains. To support two-way communications,
both LTE and WiMAX specify frame structures for TDD and FDD.
The frame duration of LTE is 1 msec while that of WiMAX is 5 msec. Generally
speaking, the complexity of implementations grows as the timing requirement gets
stricter. However, the shorter frame duration reduces latency. Consequently, the
performance of HARQ and AMC are also improved.
Both WiMAX and LTE have TDD and FDD defined in their specifications. How-
ever, Release 1.0 mobile WiMAX is defined as a TDD system and most of the LTE
deployments are expected to be FDD [36]. The reasons for this difference in deploy-
ment preference were resource availability and technological focus. Previous cellular
deployments were FDD-based. As a result, the cellular operators have unused or
in-used spectrum allocation for FDD deployments. Also, this legacy partly explains
existing cellular operators’ preference to migrate towards LTE. On the other hand,
one of the main objects of broadband wireless accesses is to support multimedia
data transport. The TDD technology adapted by mobile WiMAX operators enables
flexibility in choosing UL-to-DL data rate ratios which support the asymmetric na-
ture of multimedia traffic in general. On the other hand, FDD is more adequate
for symmetric traffic such as live voices which have been the main service of cellular
communication systems.
Other technical aspects of TDD and FDD systems are as follows:
– FDD uses paired spectrum, one for DL and the other for UL. TDD does not have
this requirement.
– TDD is more suited for applying antenna technologies than FDD. TDD systems
offer the ability to exploit channel reciprocity that is usually required by beam-
forming technologies to estimate channel quality. Diversity and MIMO techniques,

however, are applicable to both TDD and FDD.
– TDD and FDD device manufacturers face different design challenges. TDD requires
synchronization between transceivers. TDD has advantages over FDD in that some
devices can be shared among the transmitter and the receiver.
5.2.2 Physical-layer processing

Both WiMAX and LTE use a MAC scheduler to dynamically adjust coding and
modulation schemes of each transmission according to the channel conditions. In
addition to supporting a variety of coding and modulation schemes, the PHY-layer
processing chains of both systems have a lot in common. Both of them have the
following processing steps: CRC attachment, channel coding schemes such as CC
and CTC, scrambling/interleaving, data modulation techniques such as QPSK, 16-
QAM and 64-QAM and OFDMA modulation. Smart antenna technologies such as
transmission diversity and multiple antennas are designed into both systems. While
WiMAX uses STC, LTE uses a variation of STC called SFBC. Both systems use
multiple antenna and SDMA in the DL and only SDMA in the UL. SDMA is referred
to as MU-MIMO in LTE and collaborative spatial multiplex in WiMAX.
5.3 MAC layer

Since the MAC layer of WiMAX covers the whole layer 2 of the OSI model while
the MAC sublayer of LTE is only a part of the layer 2, the WiMAX MAC layer
has more functions. Data units are passed among sublayers in the same naming
conversion, SDU and PDU. Although the duration of frames is fixed for both systems,
the transmission interval is fixed for LTE and is variable for WiMAX. Functionally
speaking, the MAC layers of both LTE and WiMAX provide functions to support
the traditional layer-2 objective of the OSI model in terms of resource management.
Resource management is optimized by adapting centralized control at the eNB of LTE
and the BS of WiMAX. In addition to traditional layer-2 functions, the WiMAX MAC
layer also provides function to support security features such as integrity protection
and authentication.
Some functional overlaps between LTE and WiMAX are:
– ROHC at the PDCP layer of LTE is provided by the CS of WiMAX.

– Control channels of LTE are functionally similar to management CIDs of WiMAX.
They are defined to support network specific operations.
– HARQ is supported to enhance network performance.

68
5.4 Comparison summary
Table 13: Comparison of LTE 3GPP Release 8 and WiMAX R1.0 (IEEE 802.16e-2005)
Issue LTE (3GPP Release 8) WiMAX R1.0 (IEEE 802.16-2004&E)

Definition
– LTE is 3GPP’s radio standard to offer – WiMAX is governed by the WiMAX Fo-
broadband accesses to mobile devices. rum to offer broadband accesses to mobile
– It is based on the EPS architecture which devices such as PDAs and laptops.
is similar to the IP-OFDMA technology. – It is based on the IP-OFDMA technology
which is one of the IMT-2000 family mo-
bile wireless interface standards.
Timing
– The system requirements were defined in – The baseline standard, IEEE 802.16e-
2005. 2005, was finalized in 2006.
– The backward-compatibility verification of – The system requirements were defined in
the baseline standard, 3GPP Release 8, 2006.
was complete in 2009. – The IP-based core network definition was
– The world’s first commercial LTE network completed in 2007.
was launched in 2009. – The first commercial deployment of a Mo-
bile WiMAX network, WiBro, was realized
in 2007.

Standard
– LTE is based on the 36-series documents – The air interface is covered by the IEEE
in the forms of technical specifications and 802.16 standard published by IEEE.
technical reports published by 3GPP. – The end-to-end performance is regulated
– The air interface is defined by the 3GPP by the WiMAX forum.
RAN group – Release 1.0 of the mobile WiMAX stan-
– The end-to-end performance is regulated dard is based on IEEE 802.16e-2005.
by the 3GPP SA group.

Ecosystem
– Members of the 3GPP standard body – Members of the WiMAX Forum consist of
– Most mobile operators both computer industry and cellular indus-
try
– IEEE
Legacy
– GAM/GPRS/UMTS/HSPA – None
Network archi-
tecture – Two-tier architecture: EUTRAN and EPC – Two-tier architecture: ASN and CSN
– Flatter architecture since centralized con- – Several ASN profile for different degrees
troller (RNC) is eliminated in favour of a of control ranging from centralized to dis-
distributed system tributed
69
70
Core Network
– All-IP EUTRAN network, EPC – WiMAX Forum’s all-IP network which
consists of nodes common to traditional
IP-based networks
Communication
between network – Interfaces – Reference points
elements
Cell radius
– 5km – 2-7 km
Functions of the
MAC layer – Sublayering of layer 2 : PDCP, RLC and – Sublayering of layer 2: CS, CPS and secu-
MAC rity
– PMP support with the centralized con- – PMP support with the centralized con-
troller, an eNB troller, a BS
– QoS support – QoS support, header compression, security
features
HARQ
– Yes – Yes
Cell capacity
– More than 200 user at a 5-MHz bandwidth – 100-200 users
– More than 400 users for larger bandwidths

Mobility
– Up to 250 km/h – Up to 120 km/h
Latency
– Link layer: smaller than 5 msec – Link layer ≈ 20 msec
– Handoff: smaller than 50 msec – Handoff: 35-50 msec
Multicast/

Broadcast – Release 9.0 – Release 1.0
Radio resource
structure – Time-frequency unit: (OFDMA symbol – Time-frequency unit: (OFDMA symbol
index, subcarrier index) index, subchannel index)
– Divisions: slot, subframe, resource element – Divisions: slot, burst and subframe
and resource block
Channel band-
width – Scalable – Scalable up to 20 MHz
– 1.4, 3, 5, 10, 16 and 20 MHz – Bandwidth increments: 1.25, 1.75, 2 or
– Bandwidth configuration increment: 0.18 2.75 MHz
MHz
Frame size
– 1 msec – 5 msec
71
72
Multiple access
technology – DL: OFDMA – DL: OFDMA
– UL: SC-FDMA – UL: OFDMA
Duplexing
– FDD and TDD – TDD in Release 1.0
– TDD and FDD in Release 1.5
Subcarrier map-
ping – Localized and distributed – Localized and distributed
Subcarrier hop-
ping – Yes – Yes
Data modula-
tion – BPSK, QPSK, 16-QAM and 64-QAM – QPSK, 16-QAM and 64-QAM
Subcarrier spac-
ing – 7.5 and 15 kHz – 10.94 kHz
FFT size
– 128, 256, 512, 1024, 1536, 2048 – 128, 512, 1024, 2048
OFDMA symbol
duration – 71.8, 71.3, 83.2 and 166.6 μs – 102.9 μs

Channel coding
– Convolutional coding for control informa- – Convolutional coding for frame control
tion, K=7, R=1/3 headers
– Convolutional turbo coding for data infor- – Convolutional turbo coding for data and
mation, K=4, R=1/3, 6144 bits/block control information
– Block and respective coding – Optional: BCT and LDPC coding
Smart antenna

technologies – Multi-layer precoded spatial multiplexing, – Beamforming, space time coding and spa-
space frequency block coding tial multiplexing
– MIMO – MIMO
73
6 Conclusion
The aim of this report was to perform a technical comparison and analysis of two
pre-4G mobile broadband systems: LTE and WiMAX. In order to limit the scope
of this activity, special focus was given to the air interface, especially the PHY and
MAC layers as defined by the OSI model. The higher layers of these systems were
briefly discussed to provide a better understanding of their overall operation.
The analysis of the two systems reveals a high degree of similarity. From a system
standpoint, both systems have similar functional decompositions such as the sepa-
ration of radio access network and IP core network although the specific protocols
used between those networks are different. Both systems also have similar air inter-
faces designed to aim at efficient spectrum usage. The MAC layers are responsible
for the layer-2 functions of the OSI model. The PHY layers use similar processing
technologies that are optimized for their specific frame sizes and subcarrier spacings.
The MAC-layer implementations of both systems vary considerably; the MAC layer
of WiMAX covers the entire layer 2 of the OSI model while the MAC sublayer of LTE
is only a part of the layer 2. As a result, the WiMAX MAC layer design provides
more functionalities than the LTE MAC layer implementation. However, both MAC
layer implementations are designed to support the fundamental layer-2 requirement:
resource management. Resources are centrally controlled at the eNB of LTE and the
BS of WiMAX.
The PHY-layer implementations of both WiMAX and LTE use AMC to dynamically
adjust system parameters of each transmission according to the channel conditions.
Their physical layer processing chains also have many signal processing functions in
common, such as CRC check, turbo coding, interleaving, scrambling, OFDMA and
MIMO. System parameters are adjusted for each implementation to control over-
heads and flexibility of the technology choices. Processing functions such as header
compression and HARQ are used to enhance performance.
Since LTE and WiMAX use similar technologies, their performance approximations
are comparable. Their specific implementation choices control overheads and flexibil-
ity of the technologies. Consequently, efficiencies of the two systems are slightly
different. Currently, LTE efficiency is slightly better than WiMAX Release 1.0
[10, 12, 14, 66]. However, the two systems have been learning from and competing
with each other to improve their future revisions. In fact, with the next revision of
their standards, these two pre-4G systems are aiming to meet the ITU IMT-Advanced
requirements to be eventually considered as 4G systems. These requirements were
established to support low to high mobility applications with data rates (100 Mb/s
for high and 1 Gb/s for low mobility) allowing high-quality multimedia within a wide
range of services and platforms. Better cell spectral efficiency in all four cell envi-

ronments (indoor, microcellular, urban and high speed), scalable bandwidth up to
40 MHz, lower latency, lower handover interruption times and higher VoIP capac-
ity are all key factors that should contribute to provide significant improvements in
performance and quality of service.
All three standardization communities mentioned earlier, namely 3GPP, IEEE and
WiMAX Forum, are developing solutions and specifications to be submitted to the
ITU for the IMT-Advanced requirements. 3GPP is currently working on defining
LTE-Advanced. The LTE-Advanced study item appears to be defining the content for
3GPP Release 10 [67]. In the late 2009, IEEE submitted a candidate radio interface
technology for IMT-Advanced [68]. The proposal is based on the IEEE 802.16m
standard and demonstrates its ability to meet requirements in all four IMT-Advanced
cell environments. In April 2010, some member of the WiMAX forum formed the
WiMAX 2 collaboration initiative (WCI) to support WiMAX 2 development based
on the IEEE 802.16m standard [69]. The WCI members consist of Alvarion, Beceem,
GCT Semiconductor, Intel, Motorola, Samsung, Sequans, XRONet, ZTE and ITRI.
Finally, although the technological aspects of communications systems have always

been an important factor determining the evolutionary direction of earlier cellular sys-
tems, both pre-4G systems are taking similar technological choices aiming at meeting,
or even exceeding the performance levels set by the IMT-Advanced requirements. The
business and marketing factors may play a bigger role in determining the survival of
LTE and mobile WiMAX in the 4G evolution. For example, WiMAX was introduced
earlier than LTE, which gives WiMAX a window of opportunity. The two systems
appear to be deployed and marketed in different countries for different purposes due
to the customer base of each service provider. WiMAX has been adapted by new en-
trants to the mobile broadband services and chip markets while LTE’s providers are
cellular operators and equipment manufacturers. Following this observation, keeping
track of business factors, such as worldwide deployments, number of subscribers, total
revue and vendor supports helps determining possible evolutions of future wireless
systems.

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Annex A: List of LTE standards
1. TS 36.101 Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (E-UTRA); User
Equipment (UE) radio transmission and reception
2. TS 36.104 Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (E-UTRA); Base
Station (BS) radio transmission and reception
3. TS 36.106 Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (E-UTRA); FDD
repeater radio transmission and reception
Station (BS) and repeater ElectroMagnetic Compatibility (EMC)
5. TS 36.124 Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (E-UTRA); Elec-
tromagnetic compatibility (EMC) requirements for mobile terminals
and ancillary equipment
6. TS 36.133 Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (E-UTRA); Re-
quirements for support of radio resource management
Station (BS) conformance testing
8. TS 36.143 Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (E-UTRA); FDD
repeater conformance testing
quirements for Support of Assisted Global Navigation Satellite System
(A-GNSS).
10. TS 36.201 Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (E-UTRA);
Long Term Evolution (LTE) physical layer; General description
Physical channels and modulation
Multiplexing and channel coding
Physical layer procedures
Physical layer - Measurements
15. TS 36.300 Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (E-UTRA)
and Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network (E-UTRAN);
Overall description; Stage 2
Services provided by the physical layer
User Equipment (UE) procedures in idle mode
18. TS 36.305 Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network (E-
UTRAN); Stage 2 functional specification of User Equipment (UE)
positioning in E-UTRAN.

User Equipment (UE) radio access capabilities
quirements on User Equipments (UEs) supporting a release-indepen-
dent frequency band.
UTRAN); Layer 2 - Measurements
Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol specification
Radio Link Control (RLC) protocol specification
Packet Data Convergence Protocol (PDCP) specification
Radio Resource Control (RRC); Protocol specification
LTE Positioning Protocol (LPP)
UTRAN); Architecture description
UTRAN); S1 layer 1 general aspects and principles
UTRAN); S1 layer 1.
UTRAN); S1 signalling transport
31. TS 36.413 Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (E-UTRA) ;
S1 Application Protocol (S1AP)
UTRAN); S1 data transport
UTRAN); X2 general aspects and principles
UTRAN); X2 layer 1
UTRAN); X2 signalling transport
UTRAN); X2 Application Protocol (X2AP)
UTRAN); X2 data transport
UTRAN); General aspects and principles for interfaces supporting
Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service (MBMS) within E-UTRAN

UTRAN); Layer 1 for interfaces supporting Multimedia Broadcast
Multicast Service (MBMS) within E-UTRAN
UTRAN); Signalling Transport for interfaces supporting Multimedia
Broadcast Multicast Service (MBMS) within E-UTRAN
UTRAN); M2 Application Protocol (M2AP)
UTRAN); M3 Application Protocol (M3AP)
UTRAN); M1 Data Transport
UTRAN); M1 User Plane protocol
LTE Positioning Protocol A (LPPa)
46. TS 36.508 Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (E-UTRA)
and Evolved Packet Core (EPC); Common test environments for User
Equipment (UE) conformance testing
47. TS 36.509 Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (E-UTRA) and
Evolved Packet Core (EPC); Special conformance testing functions for
User Equipment (UE)
48. TS 36.521-1 Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (E-UTRA);
User Equipment (UE) conformance specification; Radio transmission
and reception; Part 1: Conformance testing
and reception; Part 2: Implementation Conformance Statement (ICS)
and reception; Part 3: Radio Resource Management (RRM) confor-
mance testing
51. TS 36.523-1 Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (E-UTRA)
and Evolved Packet Core (EPC); User Equipment (UE) conformance
specification; Part 1: Protocol conformance specification
specification; Part 2: ICS
specification; Part 3: Test suites
54. TR 36.800 Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (UTRA) and Evolved

Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (E-UTRA); Extended UMTS /
LTE 800 Work Item Technical Report
55. TR 36.801 Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (E-UTRA);
Measurement Requirements
User Equipment (UE) radio transmission and reception
Base Station (BS) radio transmission and reception
Study on minimization of drive-tests in next generation networks
Relay architectures for E-UTRA (LTE-Advanced)
60. TR 36.810 Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (UTRA) and Evolved
Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (E-UTRA); UMTS / LTE 800 for
Europe Work Item Technical Report.
Further advancements for E-UTRA Physical layer aspects
62. TR 36.815 TR LTE-Advanced feasibility studies in RAN WG4
63. TR 36.821 Extended UMTS/LTE 1500 Work Item Technical Report
64. TR 36.902 Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network (E-
UTRAN); Self-configuring and self-optimizing network (SON) use
cases and solutions
Derivation of test tolerances for multi-cell Radio Resource Manage-
ment (RRM) conformance tests
66. TR 36.912 Feasibility study for Further Advancements for E-UTRA
(LTE-Advanced)
67. TR 36.913 Requirements for further advancements for Evolved Uni-
versal Terrestrial Radio Access (E-UTRA) (LTE-Advanced)
68. TR 36.921 FDD Home eNB RF Requirements Work Item Technical
Report
69. TR 36.922 LTE TDD Home eNode B (HeNB) Radio Frequency (RF)
requirements; Work item Technical Report
70. TR 36.931 RF requirements for LTE Pico NodeB
71. TR 36.938 Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network (E-
UTRAN); Improved network controlled mobility between E-UTRAN
and 3GPP2/mobile WiMAX radio technologies
Radio Frequency (RF) system scenarios
Repeater planning guidelines and system analysis

Annex B: List of EPS interface
The following are LTE Interfaces [43]:
S1-MME : Reference point for the control plane protocol between E-UTRAN and
MME.
S1-U : Reference point between E-UTRAN and Serving GW for the per bearer user
plane tunnelling and inter eNB path switching during handover.
S2 : Between PDN GW and non-3GPP access. Supports control and mobility pro-
cedures for non-3GPP access technologies.
S3 : It enables user and bearer information exchange for inter 3GPP access network
mobility in idle and/or active state.
S4 : It provides related control and mobility support between GPRS Core and the
3GPP Anchor function of Serving GW. In addition, if Direct Tunnel is not
established, it provides the user plane tunnelling.
S5 : It provides user plane tunnelling and tunnel management between Serving GW
and PDN GW. It is used for Serving GW relocation due to UE mobility and if
the Serving GW needs to connect to a non-collocated PDN GW for the required
PDN connectivity.
S6 : Between the Evolved Packet Core nodes and the HSS. Supports the procedures
for user subscription data retrieval and location update.
S6a : It enables transfer of subscription and authentication data for authenticat-
ing/authorizing user access to the evolved system (AAA interface) between
MME and HSS.
S7 : Between the PDN GW and the PCRF. Supports the procedures for Policy and
Charging rule transfer from the PCRF to the EPC. This interface is based on
the 3GPP R7 Gx definition.
S8 : Inter-PLMN reference point providing user and control plane between the Serv-
ing GW in the VPLMN and the PDN GW in the HPLMN. S8 is the inter
PLMN variant of S5.
S9 : It provides transfer of (QoS) policy and charging control information between
the Home PCRF and the Visited PCRF in order to support local breakout
function.
S10 : Reference point between MMEs for MME relocation and MME to MME in-
formation transfer.
S11 : Reference point between MME and Serving GW.
S12 : Reference point between UTRAN and Serving GW for user plane tunnelling
when Direct Tunnel is established. It is based on the Iu-u/Gn-u reference point
using the GTP-U protocol as defined between SGSN and UTRAN or respec-
tively between SGSN and GGSN. Usage of S12 is an operator configuration
option.

S13 : It enables UE identity check procedure between MME and EIR.
X2 : Between eNBs. Supports mobility and user plane tunnelling features. Based
on the same user plane protocol as S1.
Gx : It provides transfer of (QoS) policy and charging rules from PCRF to Policy
and Charging Enforcement Function (PCEF) in the PDN GW.
SGi : It is the reference point between the PDN GW and the packet data network.
Packet data network may be an operator external public or private packet data
network or an intra operator packet data network, e.g. for provision of IMS
services. This reference point corresponds to Gi for 3GPP accesses.
Rx : The Rx reference point resides between the AF (Application Function) and the
PCRF in the TS 23.203.
SBc : Reference point between CBC and MME for warning message delivery and
control functions.
Wn* : Reference point between the untrusted non-3GPP IP access and the ePDG.
Traffic on this interface has to be forwarded toward ePDG.

List of acronyms
16-QAM 16-level quadrature amplitude modulation
1G First generation
2G Second generation
3G Third generation
3GPP Third generation partnership project
4G Forth generation
64-QAM 64-level quadrature amplitude modulation
AAA Authorization and accounting
AES-CCM Advanced encryption standard-counter with cipher block
chaining message authentication code
AM Acknowledge mode
AMBR Aggregate maximum bit rate
AMC Adaptive modulation and coding
AP Application protocol
ARQ Automatic repeat request
AS Access stratum
ASN-GW Access service network gateway
ATM Asynchronous transfer mode
BCCH Broadcast control channel
BCH Broadcast channel
BCT Block turbo coding
BGAN Broadband global area network
BPSK Binary phase shift keying
BS Base station
BWA Broadband wireless access
CBC Cell broadcast service
CC Convolutional coding
CCCH Common control channel
CDMA Code division multiple access
CID Connection identifier
CMAC/HMAC Cipher-based message authentication code/keyed-hashing
for message authentication code
CP Cyclic prefix
CPS MAC common part sublayer
CQI Channel quality indication
CRC Cyclic redundancy check
CS Circuit switched
CSN Connectivity services network
CTC Convolutional turbo coding
DCCH Dedicated control channel

DFT Discrete Fourier transform
DHCP Dynamic host configuration protocol
DHCPv4 Dynamic host configuration protocol service for IPv4
DiffServ Differentiated services
DL Downlink
DLL Data Link Layer
DOCSIS Data over cable service interface specification
DP Decision point
DRX Discontinuous receive
DTCH Dedicated traffic channel
EAP Extensible authentication protocol
ECRTP Enhanced compressed real-time transport protocol
EDGE Enhanced data rates for GSM evolution
E-MBMS Enhanced multimedia broadcast multicast service
EMM EPS mobility management
eNB Evolved Node B
EP Enforcement point
EPC Evolved packed core
EPS Evolved packet system
ESM EPS session management
ETH-CS Ethernet convergence sublayer
ETWS Tsunami warning system
E-UTRAN Evolved UMTS terrestrial radio access network
EVDO Evolution – data only
FCH Frame control header
FDD Frequency division duplex
FDMA Frequency division multiple access
FEC Forward error correction
FFT Fast Fourier transform
FUSC Full usage subchannel
GPRS General packet radio service
GRE Generic routing encapsulation
GSM Global system for mobile communications
GTP GPRS tunnelling protocol
GTP-U GPRS tunnelling protocol — user data tunnelling
HA Home agent
HARQ Hybrid automatic repeat request
HARQ Hybrid ARQ
HSPA High speed packet access
HSS Home subscriber service
IDFT Inverse discrete Fourier transform
IEEE Institute of electrical and electronics engineers

IETF Internet engineering task force
IMS IP multimedia subsystem
IMT International mobile telecommunication
IP Internet protocol
IP CS IP convergence sublayer
ISO/OSI International organization for standardization /open system
interconnection
ISP Internet service provider
LAN Local area network
LDPC Low density parity check
LLC Logical link control
LMSC LAN/MAN standards committee
LOS Line of sight
LTE Long term evolution
LTE-Uu S1, X2 and LTE-UE interfaces
MAC Media access control
MAN Metropolitan area network
MBMS Multimedia broadcast multicast service
MBSFN Multicast broadcast signal frequency network
MCCH Multicast control channel
MCH Multicast channel
MCS Modulation coding scheme
MIMO Multiple-input and multiple-output
MME Mobile management entity
MPLS Multiprotocol label switching
MS Mobile station
MTCH Multicast traffic channel
MU-MIMO Multi user MIMO
NAP Network access providers
NAS Non access stratum
NB NodeB
NL Network Layer
NLOS Non line of sight
NSP Network service providers
NWG Network working group
OFCS Offline charging system
OFDMA Orthogonal frequency-division multiple access
PBCH Physical broadcast channel
PC Personal computer
PCCH Paging control channel
PCFICH Physical control format indicator channel
PCH Paging channel

PCRF Policy and charging rules function
PDA Personal digital assistant
PDCCH Physical downlink control channel
PDCP Packet data convergence protocol
PDN-GW Packet data network gateway
PDSCH Physical downlink shared channel
PDU Protocol data unit
PHICH Physical hybrid ARQ indicator channel
PHS Payload header suppression
PHY Physical
PKM Privacy key management
PLMN Public land mobile network
PMCH Physical multicast channel
PMIP Proxy mobile IP
PRACH Physical random access channel
PRBS Pseudo-random binary sequence
PS Packet switched
PSS Packet-switched streaming service
PUSC Partial usage subchannel
PUSCH Physical uplink shared channel
QCI QoS class identifier
QoS Quality of service
QPP Quadratic permutation polynomial
QPSK Quadrature phase shift keying
RAB Radio access bearer
RACH Random access channel
RAN Radio access network
RB Recourse block
RF Radio frequency
RFE Radio front-end
RLC Radio link control
RM Rate matching
RNC Radio network controller
ROHC Robust header compression
RP Reference point
RRC Radio resource control
RRM Radio resource management
RTCP Real-time transport protocol
RTD Round-trip delay
RTP Real-time protocol
SA System architecture
SAE System architecture evolution

SAP Service access point
SC-FDMA Single carrier frequency division multiple access
SCH Shared channel
SCTP Stream control transmission protocol
SDMA Spatial division multiple access
SDU Service data unit
SFBC Space frequency block coding
SFID Service flow identifier
SGSN Serving GPRS support node
S-GW Serving gateway
SIP Session initiation protocol
STC Space time coding
SU-MIMO Single user MIMO
TAG Technical advisory group
TB Transport block
TCP Transmission control protocol
TDD Time division duplex
TDMA Time division multiple access
TR Technical report
TS Technical specification
TTG Transmit/receive transition gap
TTI Transmission time interval
UDP User datagram protocol
UE User equipment
UL Uplink
UM Un-acknowledge mode
UMB Ultra mobile broadband
UMTS Universal mobile telecommunications system
UTRAN Universal terrestrial radio access network
VLAN Virtual local area network
VoIP Voice over IP
WCI WiMAX 2 collaboration initiative
WG Working group
WiBro Wireless broadband
WiFi Wireless Fidelity (IEEE 802.11 wireless networking)
WiMAX Worldwide interoperability for microwave access
WLAN Wireless local area network
WMAN Wireless metropolitan area network


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3. TITLE (The complete document title as indicated on the title page. Its classification should be indicated by the appropriate
abbreviation (S, C or U) in parentheses after the title.)
LTE vs. WiMAX: A technical comparison and analysis of their PHY and MAC layers
4. AUTHORS (Last name, followed by initials – ranks, titles, etc. not to be used.)
Wang, M.; Beaumont, J.-F.
5. DATE OF PUBLICATION (Month and year of publication of 6a. NO. OF PAGES (Total 6b. NO. OF REFS (Total
document.) containing information. cited in document.)
Include Annexes,
Appendices, etc.)
November 2011 108 69
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3701, Carling avenue, Ottawa, Ontario, K1A-0Z4
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15dg02
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document.)
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classification.)
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13. ABSTRACT (A brief and factual summary of the document. It may also appear elsewhere in the body of the document itself. It is highly
desirable that the abstract of classified documents be unclassified. Each paragraph of the abstract shall begin with an indication of the
security classification of the information in the paragraph (unless the document itself is unclassified) represented as (S), (C), (R), or (U).
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This report presents a technical comparison and analysis of two developing pre-fourth generation
(pre-4G) wireless communications systems: the long term evolution (LTE) and the worldwide in-
teroperability for microwave access (WiMAX). This analysis is used to speculate on the possible
evolutionary directions of 4G systems since the developing direction of the earlier generations of
wireless communications systems has been historically strongly directed by their technological
aspects. Special focus is laid on the air interface, especially the physical (PHY) layer and media
access control (MAC) layers as defined by the open system interconnection (OSI) model. The
higher layers are briefly discussed to provide a better understanding of the overall systems’ op-
eration. The two pre-4G systems appear to use similar technologies that are optimized for each
system. Because of the technological similarity, other factors such as business and marketing,
may then be more important determinants of the pre-4G systems’ survival in the 4G systems
evolution.
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If it is not possible to select indexing terms which are Unclassified, the classification of each should be indicated as with the title.)
Wireless, 4G, WiMAX, LTE, 3GPP, IEEE

Lte vs. Wimax: A Technical Comparison and Analysis of Their Phy and Mac Layers

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Lte vs. Wimax: A Technical Comparison and Analysis of Their Phy and Mac Layers

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LTE vs.

Defence R&D Canada – Ottawa

Defence R&D Canada – Ottawa

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DRDC Ottawa TM 2011-121 i

ii DRDC Ottawa TM 2011-121

LTE vs. WiMAX: A technical comparison and analysis

The driving force of the 4G wireless communications technologies appears to be the

DRDC Ottawa TM 2011-121 iii

LTE vs. WiMAX: A technical comparison and analysis

L’élément moteur des technologies de communications sans ﬁl 4G semble être l’In-

iv DRDC Ottawa TM 2011-121

DRDC Ottawa TM 2011-121 v

vi DRDC Ottawa TM 2011-121

Executive summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iii

Table of contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii

List of tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xii

2 Wireless technology evolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

2.1 LTE background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

2.2 WiMAX background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

3.1 System overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

3.1.1 EPS network elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

3.1.2 EPS interfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

3.1.3 EPS protocol architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

DRDC Ottawa TM 2011-121 vii

3.1.5 Channel structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

3.2 PHY layer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

3.2.1 Time and frequency structures of radio resources . . . . . . 28

3.2.2 PHY layer model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

3.2.2.1 Transport-channel processing . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

3.2.2.2 Physical-channel processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

3.2.3 Interaction with upper layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

3.3 MAC layer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

4.1 System overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

4.1.1 Functional elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

4.1.2 Reference points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

4.1.3 Protocol architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

4.1.4 Interaction between protocol layers of IEEE 802.16 and the

4.2 PHY layer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

4.2.1 Time and frequency structures of radio resources . . . . . . 53

4.2.2 Physical-layer processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

viii DRDC Ottawa TM 2011-121

4.2.2.7 Advanced antenna technologies . . . . . . . . . . . 58

4.3 MAC layer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

4.3.1 Service-speciﬁc convergence sublayer . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

4.3.2 MAC common part sublayer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

4.3.3 Security sublayer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

5 Comparison of LTE and WiMAX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

5.1 System overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

5.1.1 Functional elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

5.1.2 Interfaces and reference points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

5.1.3 Protocol architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

5.1.4 Interaction between protocol layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

5.2 PHY layer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

5.2.1 Time and frequency structures of radio resources . . . . . . 66

5.2.2 Physical-layer processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

5.3 MAC layer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

5.4 Comparison summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

Annex A: List of LTE standards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

Annex B: List of EPS interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

DRDC Ottawa TM 2011-121 ix

Figure 2: Mobile broadband evolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Figure 3: Network range expansion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6