Scheduling and CAC in IEEE 802.16 Fixed BWNs: A Comprehensive Survey and Taxonomy

IEEE 802.16 technology has emerged as a competitive alternative to wireline broadband access solution. IEEE 802.16 can provide quality of service (QoS) guarantees for heterogeneous classes of traffic with different QoS requirements. The standard, however, leaves open the resource management and scheduling issues, which are crucial components to guarantee QoS performance. The main objective of this paper is to provide a better understanding of the missing components to ensure QoS support in IEEE 802.16 fixed broadband wireless networks (BWNs), namely scheduling and connection admission control (CAC) schemes. First, we highlight the key challenges in designing such schemes, for both point-to-multipoint (PMP) and mesh modes. Then, we survey, classify, and compare different scheduling and admission control mechanisms proposed in this work-in-progress area.