Service Provider Mobility: We've come a long

way in just five years!

Posted by Ryan Lasure Jan 24, 2010

WiMAX! WiMAX! Read all about it! As we continue to evaluate and expand on our WiMAX
network here at Ball State,

we thought you might like to read more on where our WiMAX network started,
and how far we have come! Just five years ago in 2005, Intel Corporation
proclaimed Ball State University as the Nation’s Top Wireless Campus. Since
then, Ball State has continually strived to test and utilize the newest wireless
technologies. In 2006 and 2007, Ball State took advantage of our position in
the world of wireless technology and aligned ourselves with key players in the
broadband wireless industry. Using Alvarion’s BreezeMAX 3500 wireless hardware
(pictured on right), including indoor and outdoor customer premises equipment
(CPE), we became the first university to test and deploy fixed WiMAX in the
United States!

Muncie, Indiana, provided the perfect environment for wireless testing. Our coverage area
included a single sector with a 120-degree path that offered a range of approximately 1
mile for indoor CPE and 5 miles for outdoor CPE. Of course, the area of coverage varied
depending on RF obstructions like vegetation and buildings. During the testing, Ball State
looked to identify upload and download speeds at various locations, using indoor and
outdoor CPE. Publishing our fixed WiMAX (802.16d) results in February 2007, we found that
when using BreezeMAX equipment on a 3.5 MHz channel, we could receive speeds around
8Mbps using outdoor CPE, and 4Mbps using indoor CPE.

In mid-2008, the Center for Information and Communication Sciences (CICS) at Ball State
was introduced to the Cisco Broadband Wireless Business Unit responsible for WiMAX.
During that time, Ball State University was selected by Cisco to become the first domestic
site to deploy, test, and map Mobile WiMAX (802.16e) in the United States. We then began
to document the baseline performance of Smart Beamforming technology utilizing Multiple-
Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) antennas. It was exciting for us to have an opportunity to
utilize the Educational Broadband System (EBS) licensed frequency of 2.5 GHz and provide
a platform for continuous testing.

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Service Provider Mobility: We've come a long way in just five years!

Pre-test benchmarking for Mobile WiMAX later occurred in late 2008, early 2009
with a single base station antenna on top of an on-campus Dormitory. During this
period, Cisco named Ball State the first domestic Early Field Trial (EFT) location
for Mobile WiMAX! This has been an amazing opportunity for us; establishing
a partnership that includes ancillary benefits on early equipment availability,
testing and pricing. Subsequent testing expanded to include multiple P3 base
stations and antennas (pictured on left), using Cisco’s AAA server and ASN
gateways products.

As recent as late Fall of 2009, Ball State introduced a student usability study, allowing us to

further analyze several aspects of our WiMAX network. Phase 1 includes

students who live within a ½ mile radius of campus (click here to see our current coverage
map). We provided selected students with free WiMAX enabled USB dongles (pictured on
right).

In return, students are asked to participate in feedback surveys, providing information such
as data transmission rates, downtime issues, and distance of successful and unsuccessful
usage from campus. Later in the spring, we plan to move into Phase 2 where we will expand
the test radius to 2 miles from campus, add more student users to the WiMAX network,
utilize new P4 base stations and antennas operating at a 10 MHz channel width, and begin
testing of third-party devices with embedded WiMAX chipsets. Devices we plan to test
include (but are not limited to) USB dongles, laptops, netbooks, VoIP telephony, and GPS
embedded devices.

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Service Provider Mobility: We've come a long way in just five years!

Next week, we plan to give you insight as to how we find student testers! You would
probably assume that if you told a college student they could get FREE wireless broadband
Internet, they would jump right on the bandwagon right? Well, find out next week if it was
actually that easy, or if we ran into any pushback!

377 Views Tags: wimax, beamforming, mimo, bsu, ball_state_university, 802.16d, p4, p3, ebs, 802.16e, alvarion,
educational_broadband_system

Jan 28, 2010 7:25 AM Paul Sergeant

Ryan, thanks for the informative post.

How many users do you have currently?

Paul

Jan 28, 2010 9:14 AM Ryan Lasure

Paul:

Today, we currently have about 75 student testers. In addition to that, we are currently
testing other third-party devices on the network.

We plan to add another 75 in the next two weeks, and are conducting surveys to get some
user feedback. We plan to blog on our findings in the near future!

Feb 3, 2010 1:09 PM Eric Harris

Ryan,

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Service Provider Mobility: We've come a long way in just five years!

I'm excited to hear some of the results. We'll be upgrading our current Cisco/Navini CDMA
network to WiMAX shortly. I'm particularly interested in your interoperability testing of 3rd
party devices.

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