Overhead of ARQ mechanism in IEEE 802.16 networks

Different techniques for error correction such as automatic repeat request, forward error correction or combination of both methods also known as hybrid automatic repeat request are utilized in today's wireless networks. All these techniques require an implementation of control and management mechanisms to ensure its proper work. These mechanisms increase the management overhead and consume a part of network capacity. It leads to the reduction of data throughput dedicated to users. Besides, the control mechanism can negatively influence a packet delay. This paper proposes three alternatives of automatic repeat request mechanism to minimize the management overhead without a negative impact on the packet delay. Description of all proposed mechanisms, their evaluation and comparison with conventional techniques used in the IEEE 802.16 networks are presented in this paper.