WiMAX for aviation

[ScottM]

This came across my desk and I thought y'all might like a look at something that is being considered for future comms at airports. Since this came with no prohibitions or copyright in public forum, and is a FAA public project I can post it for you. I had seen a similiar proposals out of Europe last year on this. In the pdf slides they make mention of the this proposal. The initial idea is to use wideband data systems for ground control communications including operational support equipment.

 

[ElliotR]

I find the prospect of Europe using WiMax for this when there will be a ton of LTE infrastructure unlikely in the extreme.

 

[ScottM]

I find the prospect of Europe using WiMax for this when there will be a ton of LTE infrastructure unlikely in the extreme.

Thales is the one driving the Euro version. What I posted is the US version of the same stuff. If you read the requirements carefully you may notice something interesting. That is the spellings, words such as centre, authorisation, etc. It is obvious the guys from ITT, FAA, etc. lifted their text from the Euro-requirements documents. They also cut and pasted some stuff the WiMAX NWG profiles that was never published and has some mistakes in it. But it is a draft and that will get sorted out.

The other interesting thing is that they really do not mention much outside of the access network. If you read carefully they want COTS gear but they are requiring the use of a 5GHz band that is not for any commercial profile in use by WiMAX or LTE. They also want a spectral mask that is outside of the current WiMAX COTS spectral mask. Kinda of makes COTS an unrealistic expectation. Since these requirements, well not the FCC spectral mask, but the bands, will be similar in Europe, LTE will have the same problem meeting the requirements. Reuse of any commercial infrastructure is not a possibility.

I see stuff like this all the time. Science experiments like this go on a lot.

 

[Areeda]

Thales is the one driving the Euro version. What I posted is the US version of the same stuff. If you read the requirements carefully you may notice something interesting. That is the spellings, words such as centre, authorisation, etc. It is obvious the guys from ITT, FAA, etc. lifted their text from the Euro-requirements documents. They also cut and pasted some stuff the WiMAX NWG profiles that was never published and has some mistakes in it. But it is a draft and that will get sorted out.

The other interesting thing is that they really do not mention much outside of the access network. If you read carefully they want COTS gear but they are requiring the use of a 5GHz band that is not for any commercial profile in use by WiMAX or LTE. They also want a spectral mask that is outside of the current WiMAX COTS spectral mask. Kinda of makes COTS an unrealistic expectation. Since these requirements, well not the FCC spectral mask, but the bands, will be similar in Europe, LTE will have the same problem meeting the requirements. Reuse of any commercial infrastructure is not a possibility.

I see stuff like this all the time. Science experiments like this go on a lot.

Scott,

I'm intrigued by the concept of Internet access in the plane (I'm thinking iPad/Android tablets).

Would this stuff be local to an airport or country wide? Does it mean antennas will then broadcast up as well as down?

Would you please define the following terms?

• NWG profile
• COTS
• spectral mask

Thanks,
Joe

 

[ScottM]

Would you please define the following terms?

• NWG profile
• COTS
• spectral mask

NWG Profile: NWG is the Network Working Group of the WiMAX Forum. The Forum is where the industry comes together to write interoperable specifications for IEEE 802.16 (WiMAX) technology. The NWG is charged to write a profile that each vendor and operator can use to produce equipment that will handle the device messages and inter operate together.

COTS: stands for Commercial Off The Shelf and it means stuff you can just buy without having to have it special built. The government is big on saying they want COTS equipment, but then starts specifying all kinds of extra features that makes the equipment unique. Unique means more expensive.

Spectral Mask: In general this is the maximum power in a frequency band that a device can transmit. It is used to define the transmitted power per frequency to prevent interference with adjacent devices and other spectrum bands. WiMAX is a multi frequency technology. The bandwidth of a channel can be from 5MHz to 20MHz wide. How power is distributed in that channel is dictated by the spectral mask.

Does that help?


As for your other question about where this can be used, from what I can tell it is to be used in the airport environment and not while airborne. But the proposal say they want this in each airplane using that airport. I would say this is a science experiment and is many years from commercial deployments.

 

[Areeda]

Thanks Scott, yes that helps.

Joe