On the Performance of "Compensation-Based" and "Greedy" Scheduling Policies in IEEE 802.16 Networks

The provision of Quality of Service (QoS) is one of the primary requirements for IEEE 802.16/WiMAX to become a reference technology for multimedia service delivery. This paper reports on the design and analysis of some channel- aware scheduling algorithms for downlink traffic delivery in a fixed point-to-multipoint WiMAX network. In particular, compensation-based and greedy approaches are compared according to their ability to provide QoS and fairness to traffic flows when not working in ideal channel conditions. Simulations highlight that the greedy philosophy fails to provide service differentiation, especially when users perceive heterogeneous channel conditions.