Distance and throughput measurements in mobile WiMAX test bed

Abstract

In this paper, we present our approach of establishing a Mobile WiMAX test bed as a part of our collaborations with the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) for studying the performance of current and upcoming broadband wireless technologies in a railroad environment. The focus is on studying the impact of mobility on the wireless system throughput for moving trains at high velocities. We describe details of our test bed and discuss test results obtained from our laboratory and test bed. Based on our measurements, we can achieve a throughput of approximately 2.9 Mbps with the most robust modulation scheme, a maximum distance of 11 kilometers, and a speed of 70 mph, making Mobile WiMAX a promising candidate for large-scale deployments in environments such as the railroad industry. Our goal is to provide a comprehensive measurement that will assist others in understanding Mobile WiMAX performance and guiding future network deployment.