Efficient downlink scheduling with power boosting in mobile IEEE 802.16 networks

In current mobile broadband wireless access (BWA) technologies, which are based on orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA), terminals close to cell edge experience poor channel quality, due to severe path-loss and high interference from concurrent transmissions in nearby cells. To mitigate this problem we propose: (a) to partition the set of sub-channels into chunks, which are assigned different power levels; (b) the design of a data scheduling and allocation algorithm positioned in the medium access control (MAC) layer of the base station (BS), exploiting such a partitioning. The framework is analyzed in a multi-cell IEEE 802.16 network by means of system-level packet-based simulations, with detailed MAC and physical layer abstractions in combination with realistic models of the wireless channel and interference.