WiMAX end-devices

Apart from the Base Station’s components, NITlab has also acquired several end-devices able to operate as WiMAX clients. This equipment is installed at NITOS testbed, enhancing existing nodes capabilities by adding 10 WiMAX enabled mini-pcie cards, 6 WiMAX USB dongles as well as 10 WiMAX enabled smartphones carried by volunteers. All of them use Open Source firmware/drivers, thus enabling more complex experiments, and the evolution of new MAC Layer standards. In addition to the aforementioned equipment, NITlab also acquired 3 indoor WiMAX to WiFi gateway units, enabling the creation of heterogeneous topologies by involving both WiMAX and WiFi technologies.

Teltonika UM6225 USB dognle

The Teltonika UM6225 module is a compact USB modem that offers high speed data rate connectivity to WiMAX network.

Key Features:

• Compliant with IEEE802.16e-2005 WiMAX Wave 2 standard
• USB 2.0 Interface
• Operation within 2.3 - 2.4, 2.5 - 2.7, 3.3 - 3.6 or 3.3 - 3.8 GHz Range
• 2 Tx with Closed Loop Diversity
• Support up to HARQ category 7 (40 Mbps throughput DL+ UL)
• MIMO Matrix A and B for Improved Transmission Speed and Coverage
• Compatibility with Windows XP/Vista/7, Linux, MAC OS X

UT WiMAX USB dongle

In addition to the Teltonika USB dongle NITlab also acquired the UT WiMAX USB dongle provided by greenpacket with similar characteristics.

Key Features:

• Compliant with IEEE802.16e-2005 WiMAX Wave 2 standard
• Supports USB 2.0
• Operation within 2.3 - 2.7 or 3.3 - 3.6 GHz Range
• Supports OTA (Over-the-air) software upgrade
• Support up to 30Mbps (DL), 6 Mbps (UL)
• Integrates PCB printed antenna, with 2dBi Omnidirectional gain

Intel® Centrino® Advanced-N + WiMAX 6250

The Intel Centrino Advanced-N + WiMAX 6250 is a widely used user-end device. This module delivers next-gen 4G WiMAX and Wi-Fi wireless connectivity. Compliant with the 802.16e-2005 Wave 2 WiMAX standard, it provides multi-band (2.3, 2.5, 3.5 GHz) performance with up to 28 Mbps downlink and 8 Mbps uplink speeds. It is recommended for fast, energy efficient on-the-go 4G connectivity.

Other key features include:

• · Compatibility with Windows 7/8, Linux
• · Half Mini PCI-E form factor
• · Supports USB 2.0
• · 802.11a/b/g/n up to 300 Mbps speed

An alternative way we followed to mount the Intel Centrino Advanced WiMAX 6250 card to NITOS nodes, is the utilization of a USB to mini-pcie adapter, provided from Rutgers University, instead of directly mounting the card on the mini-pcie slot of the nodes. In this way, we equipped our nodes with an additional interface without having to remove any existing WiFi interface. It is worth mentioning that the Atheros WiFi interfaces cannot support communication through the USB protocol in contrast with the WiMAX interfaces that are able to communicate through it. The following figure illustrates the Intel 6250 WiMAX card mounted on the USB to mini-pcie adapter.

DX-250 WiMAX to WiFi unit

DX-250 is part of Greenpacket’s portfolio of next generation Wave 2 compliant WiMAX Modems for residential and small- and medium-sized businesses (SMEs). It is a WiMAX Integrated Access Device (IAD) that features a blend of aesthetics, data and voice access ports and high gain Omni directional antenna to offer best-in-class performance.

DX is packaged with a high-speed wireless LAN access point that enables multiple Wi-Fi-enabled devices to enjoy a stable wireless WiMAX connectivity anytime within indoor perimeters.

Key Features:

• · Compliant with IEEE802.16e-2005 WiMAX Wave 2 standard
• · Support up to 30Mbps (DL), 6 Mbps (UL), 20+ Mbps at 64QAM (UL)
• · Integrated Omni Antenna (5dBi)
• · Support up to 28 dBm RF transmit power

 Operation within 2.3 - 2.39, 2.5 - 2.7 or 3.3 - 3.6 GHz Range

HTC Evo 4G

The HTC Evo 4G is a smartphone developed by HTC Corporation and marketed as Sprint's flagship Android smartphone, running on its WiMAX network. The smartphone launched on June 4, 2010 and was the first 4G enabled smartphone released in the United States. The EVO is powered by the Qualcomm QSD8650 chipset which contains a Snapdragon Scorpion microprocessor clocked at 1 GHz and an embedded Adreno 200 graphics chip capable of up to 22 million triangles per second. It features 512 MB of eDRAM which allows for a smoother experience with Android OS, applications, and the HTC Sense user interface. The device also features 1024 MB of built-in ROM which is mainly used for the system software.

The unique feature of HTC Evo is the embedded WiMAX interface (Sequans SQN210 WiMAX chip) which supports mobile WiMAX baseband and three frequency bands: 2.3-2.4, 2.5-2.7, 3.3-3.8 GHz.

Testbed Deployment

Base station and Antenna

NITOS has been enhanced by means of the Airspan Air4G-WL24G operating on the 2.53-2.63GHz bands. The main features of the BS are summarized as follows:

• It implements the IEEE 802.16e standard, introduced initially in 2005, which is based on the SOFDMA technology.
• It consists of a single outdoor unit, thus reducing operation expenses.
• It supports up to 40dBm transmission power, with dual radios and four receivers, thus supporting 2x4 MIMO connectivity.
• Channel bandwidth can be selected from the following configurations: 3.5MHz, 5MHz, 7MHz, 10MHz and can be configured to use 2x7MHz or 2x10MHz channels.
• It supports standalone mode without the need of purchasing an extra ASN Gateway.
• The management and data paths to and from the base station can be configured using VLANs
• Supports Gigabit Ethernet connectivity, using either copper or fiber cabling.

Its most remarkable feature that enables its integration in an experimental testbed environment is the capability of it to operate in a standalone mode, with or without user authentication, and without the need to purchase an ASN GW in order to operate it. Its overall consumption depends on its configuration, and indicatively each 2x10W base station sector draws 200W of power.

The antenna acquired for its operation is an AW3008 sector antenna with CL-V-104 mounting kit from Alpha Wireless Ltd.

Antenna 's specifications are detailed in the following table.