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In the last few years, the metropolitan area networks (MAN) have increased their popularity and attracted the interest of the most important research groups all over the world. Among several standards, IEEE 802.16 has taken a relevant role providing high data rate in a big covering range with low implementation costs and multi-traffic communications. The IEEE 802.16 networks can have a pre-defined structure, with a central base station (BS) covering a cell in which a variable number of subscriber stations (SSs) can work. This paper deals with the proposal of a quality of service (QoS) driven scheduling algorithm to be used in an IEEE 802.16 network where different traffic types coexist. In particular, the paper mainly focuses on best effort data and VoIP communications, by proposing a scheduling technique that allows an efficient resource management of both traffic types by considering their specific QoS flavor. The performance evaluation has been carried out by considering both the phases of contention and packet scheduling, by means of a theoretical approach and computer simulations. Numerical results show the performance of the proposed algorithm by focusing on a scenario where the BS schedules the best effort and VoIP traffics of several SSs.

In the last years the Metropolitan Area Networks (MAN) have increased their popularity and kept the interest of the most important research groups all over the world. Several standards have been published which represent the first step for developing metropolitan networks: IEEE 802.16 (WiMAX) has taken a relevant role in reaching the goal of realizing a full-service network all over a urban and suburban area. This standard provide high data rate in a big covering range with low implementation costs, multi-traffic communication and the possibility of creating broadcast, multicast and mesh networks. The WiMAX networks can have a pre-defined structure, with a central Base Station (BS) covering a cell in which a variable number of Subscriber Stations (SS) could work, or a mesh distribution with SSs communicating together without BS participation. In this paper a QoS management model is proposed for a centralized structure in which the BS schedules the Best-Effort and VoIP traffics of several SSs.