Guest Editorial: Special Issue on: WiMAX security and applications

Abstract

Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) aims to provide high-speed, high-bandwidth, and high-capacity Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) for residential as well as enterprise applications. WiMAX is designed to provide high data rate multimedia services, e.g., voice, data, Internet, email, instant messenger, and games.

The security of WiMAX has been under researchers' scrutiny for the last few years. Both architectures and protocols on WiMAX security have been extensively studied in academics and industries. Several articles, survey reports, and research papers have been published and a number of flaws have been highlighted in the literature. The IEEE Committee has published several revisions of the IEEE 802.16 standard since its initial release in 2001, but many of the vulnerabilities have still been left unattended in the standard.

Ensuring the security of these complex and yet resource constraint systems has emerged as one of the most pressing challenges. The aim of this Special Issue is to bring together researchers and practitioners in related areas and to encourage interchange and cooperation under the context of WiMAX security between the research community and the industrial/consumer community.