A Study of WiMAX Implementation at University Campuses

The technology of Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) is based on the IEEE 802.16 standard which enables the delivery of last mile wireless broadband access within tens of kilometers. Under a single base station, the coverage is much wider than WLAN and can reach a transmission rate of 70 Mbps. In this paper, we study the implementation of WiMAX for university campuses in the Taichung metropolitan area. Feng Chia University is such a university with multiple campuses providing e-services to the university communities. We have integrated WiMAX with existing Wi-Fi and MESH networks in a three-layer configuration. As a result, the system capacity and performance of this cross-campus wireless network have both increased. We have improved the access coverage and quality such that the overall usage of the wireless network at Feng Chia University is also increased.