IEEE 802.16/WiMAX-based broadband wireless access and its application for telemedicine/e-health services

In this article we investigate the application of IEEE 802.16-based broadband wireless access (BWA) technology to telemedicine services and the related protocol engineering issues. An overview of the different evolutions of the IEEE 802.16 standard is presented and some open research issues are identified. A survey on radio resource management, traffic scheduling, and admission control mechanisms proposed for IEEE 802.16/WiMAX systems is also provided. A qualitative comparison between third-generation wireless systems and the IEEE 802.16/WiMAX technology is given. A survey on telemedicine services using traditional wireless systems is presented. The advantages of using IEEE 802.16/WiMAX technology over traditional wireless systems, as well as the related design issues and approaches are discussed. To this end, we present a bandwidth allocation and admission control algorithm for IEEE 802.16-based BWA designed specifically for wireless telemedicine/e-health services. This algorithm aims at maximizing the utilization of the radio resources while considering the quality of service requirements for telemedicine traffic. Some performance evaluation results for this scheme are obtained by simulations