Field Guide to Wireless LANs for Administrators and Power Users, A

IEEE 802.16: Fixed Broadband Wireless Access

Another class of wireless devices is based on the fixed (initially) and mobile (eventually^[8] ) broadband wireless metropolitan area network (WirelessMAN^™) standards being created by the IEEE 802.16 WG. The reason why the IEEE 802.16 standard is referred to as a metropolitan-area standard is that the technology supports inter-node distances of up to 31 miles (50 km), and some of its PHYs do not require line-of-sight in order to operate.

^[8] The IEEE 802.16 WG's TG “e” is developing a standard for mobile broadband wireless access (MBWA). There is another MBWA effort under way in the IEEE 802.20 WG.

The initial application of IEEE 802.16 technology will be as a high-speed last-mile access technology, ...