Delay and throughput analysis of IEEE 802.16 ARQ mechanism

This paper presents the impact of the Automatic Repeat Request (ARQ) parameters value over the IEEE 802.16 Medium Access Control (MAC) layer performance. We analytically analyzed the ARQ blocks delay and discarding probability, as well as the achieved MAC layer throughput, and compared the results with the experimental measurements conducted on a protocol prototype specially developed for this purpose. We have found that the values of the ARQ transmission window size, ARQ block retransmission timer, ARQ block size and ARQ block lifetime timer need to be carefully selected in accordance to the application behavior, WiMax physical layer (PHY) parameters and radio channel conditions, at the same time.