A Staged Optimization Framework for Cost Optimized WiMax Network Design

WiMax was designed to deliver last mile wireless broadband access as an alternative to cable and DSL. Its scalability offers flexible solutions for a range of possible deployment scenarios and it promises advantages such as: lower cost, wider coverage and higher capacity. However, fixed and mobile wireless access faces a stiff competition in the market of broadband services and the drive to build a profitable cost-effective network puts enormous pressure on the network design procedure. Automated cell planning techniques have been well studied and widely used across a range of wireless telephony applications. This work introduces a new approach employing a staged optimization framework to break an entire problem into several tasks which can balance thevarious objectives more effectively across the optimization process. The success of the approach is demonstrated using practical problem based on planning of WiMax service for the city of Newcastle in the UK, showing the improvement compared to a single stage optimization technique.