Power saving mechanisms of IEEE 802.16e: Sleep mode vs. idle mode

Abstract

IEEE 802.16e standard specifies two mechanisms, sleep mode and idle mode, for the power-efficient operation of a mobile station (MS). Despite the common purpose, these two mechanisms are different in terms of MS's handover and wakening-up process. Recently, each of them is selected as a required feature in the system profile developed by WiMAX forum, which means that they should be implemented in a single MS for the certification. Therefore, the MS supporting the two mechanisms at the same time will require a method to make a better choice considering the situation that it is placed. As the first step toward designing the method, this paper focuses on evaluating the performance of sleep and idle mode in terms of terminal mobility. Analytic results verified by simulations show that idle mode performs better than sleep mode in supporting mobility. © Springer-Verlag 2006.