Performance evaluation of OFDM based WiMAX (IEEE 802.16d) system under diverse channel conditions

Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) based WiMAX (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) have been a promising last mile access technology to provide high speed internet access in the residential as well as small and medium sized enterprise sectors. OFDM-based WiMAX systems are capable to provide high data rate with low BER (bit error rate) at low SNR (signal to noise ratio). In this paper we have analyzed Bit Error Rate (BER) performance of the WiMAX Physical layer baseband conforming to the parameters established by IEEE 802.16 standards under real fading IEEE standardized channels known as the Stanford University Interim (SUI) channels for broadband wireless access‥ These channels were modeled as three paths fading channels. From the analysis it was observed that Rayleigh fading channel with high Doppler spread is the worst channel degrading the system performance.