Wi-MuMe: WiMAX MuLTIHOP MeSH - A Relay Based Approach to Deliver Broadband to Rural Communities

Overview

Multi-hop relay based WiMAX is one of the proposed solutions to address the problem of capacity and coverage expansion in the developing and under-developed regions of the world. Compared with the Point to Multi-Point (PMP) based communication; the mesh mode of WiMAX can provide better coverage, bandwidth, flexibility and scalability. Studies indicate that in rural communities, voice calls and services are mostly used within the same or surrounding village which drives the necessity of community wireless networks. This paper propose a novel hybrid (PMP and Relay-based) WiMAX Multihop Mesh (Wi-MuMe) architecture that leverages the robustness of mesh network to provides better connectivity at cell edges. It also proposes a hybrid macro frame structure that includes the relay and mesh subframes.