Simulation Studies of a Fair and Effective Queueing Algorithm for WiMAX Resource Allocation

Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) system has emerged as a strong candidate for providing mobile broadband wireless service to users. Resource allocation in Media Access Control (MAC) layer is crucial for ensuring Quality of Service (QoS) in WiMAX. However, WiMAX standard does not define the scheduling algorithm in MAC layer. We analyze two representative WiMAX scheduling algorithms, and propose a Fair and Effective Queueing (FEQ) algorithm for WiMAX scheduling with a novel queueing analysis model. In this paper we conduct simulation studies for the FEQ algorithm to verify its effectiveness and the correctness of the queueing analysis model. We also compare FEQ algorithm’s performance with two other representative WiMAX scheduling algorithms under Poisson and bursty traffic. Our simulation results show that FEQ algorithm has good performance in terms of fairness and packet drop rate, with the benefit of low algorithm complexity.