g the ratification of the 802.16e standard (also designated 802.16-2005), broadband Internet access will soon be widely Wireless Network Physical Architecture Network Sensor Ethernet coordinator Modem gateway Figure 3-21: A Variety of ZigBee Devices (courtesy of Cirronet Inc.) available to mobile devices and a range of new mobile wireless MAN devices is emerging, driving the convergence of mobile phones and PDAs. Fixed Wireless MAN Devices Wireless networking devices for fixed wireless MAN applications, essentially for last mile broadband Internet access, fall into two categories - station equipment and customer premises equipment (CPE). Some examples of base station equipment to support wireless MANs of differing scales are shown in Figure 3-22. The macro scale base station shown can potentially support thousands of subscribers in dense Figure 3-22: Micro and Macro WMAN Base Station Equipment (courtesy of Aperto Networks Inc.) Chapter Three Table 3-9: Wireless MAN Devices and Features WMAN device Typical features Basic self installed Basic WMAN connectivity to a customer PC or indoor CPE network. Multiple diversity or adaptive array antennas to improve non line-of-sight reception. Outdoor CPE External antenna and radio. Provides higher antenna gain and longer range. Base station equipment Modular and scalable construction. Macro and micro configurations for dense metropolitan or sparse rural installations. Flexible RF channel usage, from one channel over multiple antenna sectors to multiple channels per antenna sector. Integrated network MAN interface with network gateway functions (Routing, gateway NAT and firewall capabilities). Optionally with integrated wireless LAN access point. Integrated CPU to support additional WISP services such as VoIP telephony. metropolitan area deployments, while the micro scale equipment is designed to support lower user numbers in sparse rural areas. Some of the types and key features of base station and CPE hardware are summarised in Table 3-9. Figure 3-23 shows a variety of dif