Simulation of lead-time scheduling in PMP FWA networks

The terrestrial point-to-multipoint fixed wireless access (PMP FWA) systems have evolved from their first circuit-switched proprietary implementations in the 1970s into flexible, packet-based solutions available to competitive local exchange carriers (CLEC) for providing POTS and Internet access in WAN and MAN. Examples of such systems can be seen in a number of proprietary technologies, as well as in the commercial implementations of the IEEE 802 families of standards. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the performance of a PMP FWA system in the context of today's packet based IntServ infrastructure. The evaluation takes into account three scheduling algorithms (FIFO, strict priority, and lead-time) in a number of different configurations. This paper also proposes a set of mechanisms that can be introduced into the IntServ framework to support the lead-time scheduling algorithm.