Performance analysis of IEEE 802.16 networks with MMPP arrivals

As one of the candidate technologies for fourth-generation mobile communication networks, WiMAX has attracted significant research interest. Many works have investigated the contention-based access method used for best effort (BE) service, which is the major supported service class in WiMAX. In this paper, we investigate the network performance of an unsaturated IEEE 802.16 network with the contention-based access mechanism. To capture the bursty characteristics of BE traffic, we model packet arrivals at each subscriber station as a Markov modulated Poisson process (MMPP). Based on the MMPP arrivals assumption, we derive analytical expressions for the network throughput and packet delay. We validate our analytical model by comparing with simulation results under various operating parameters.