The most common WiMAX/802.16d configuration for fixed applications consists of a base station mounted on a building or tower that communicates on a point to multi-point basis with subscriber stations located in businesses and homes.

Point to point backhauls is also an important application that can take advantage of the economies of scale made possible by the success of WiMAX and MMDS/MDS/WCS technology, especially the availability of new low cost Baseband and RF chip sets. In fact, for a similar throughput capacity and frequency, WiMAX point-to-point links may achieve up to 4-times the cost benefit over comparable proprietary technologies.

In terms of reach ability, “802.16” has a range of up to 30 miles in rural areas and open spaces and in a multi-point urban environment a typical cell radius of between 4 to 6 miles is achievable depending on the user density, terrain and application in terms of data rate and modulation.

With shared aggregate data rates up to 75 Mbps, a single “sector” of an 802.16 base station can provides sufficient bandwidth to simultaneously support more than 60 businesses – assuming T1 level services - or hundreds of residential customers with DSL service at 512 kb/s.
The 802.16 specification also includes robust security features and the Quality of Service needed to support low latency and low jitter services such as voice and video. 802.16 voice services supported can be either traditional Time Division Multiplexed (TDM) voice or Voice over IP (VoIP).

Typical WiMAX applications for 802.16 systems:

Cellular backhaul: Wired backhaul in the US are very competitive and affordable but the situation is very much different in the rest of the world where wireless backhaul is used in approximately 80 percent of cellular towers. With the advent of cost effective WiMAX backhaul products, US cellular service providers will look to wireless backhaul as a cost-effective alternative to legacy leased lines.

Enterprise backhaul: Broadband Internet connectivity is mission critical for many businesses and in many markets, local exchange carriers are still taking months to provision a T1 line for a business customer, if the service is not already available in the building. 802.16d wireless technology enables broadband service provisioning in a matter of days, and at significantly reduced cost.

Hot Spots and SOHO backhaul: Last-mile broadband wireless access can help to accelerate the deployment of 802.11 hotspots and home/small office wireless LANs, especially in those areas not served by cable or DSL or in areas where the local telephone company may have a long lead time for provisioning broadband service.

Residential broadband: Practical limitations prevent cable and DSL technologies from reaching many potential broadband customers. Traditional DSL has limited reach and this limitation means that many suburban and rural locations may not be served by affordable broadband connections. 802.16 is a natural choice for underserved rural and remote areas with low population density where the wired infrastructure either does not exist or does not offer the quality to support high-speed data.

Public Safety Applications: Recent wide-scale emergencies have made it clear that public safety and disaster response agencies need effective, high-quality, reliable communications services. Such applications includes law enforcement, fire fighting, homeland security, emergency management, emergency and medical services.