Introduction - If you have any usage issues, please Google them yourself
WiMAX and WiFi have emerged as promising
broadband access solutions for the latest generation of wireless
MANs and LANs, respectively. Their complementary features
enable the use of WiMAX as a backhaul service to connect
multiple dispersed WiFi hotspots to the Internet. This study
proposes an integrated architecture utilizing a novel
WiMAX/WiFi Access Point (W2-AP) device to effectively combine
the WiMAX and WiFi technologies. In the proposed architecture,
the protocol operation of the WiFi hotspots is the same as that of
the WiMAX system. As a result, the WiFi network can support
connection-oriented transmissions and QoS in a similar fashion to
the WiMAX system, and thus a considerable improvement in the
delay performance is obtained. The numerical results obtained
using a Qualnet simulator confirm both the effectiveness and the
efficiency of the proposed architecture.