Performance comparison of HARQ and ARQ mechanisms in IEEE 802.16 networks

The IEEE 802.16 technology defines several link level mechanisms to retransmit erroneous data. In this paper we compare the performance of the ARQ and HARQ mechanisms in the IEEE 802.16 networks. Our simulations results show that in general HARQ provides a better performance. However, ARQ can compete successfully with it due to a smaller signaling overhead. Furthermore, since ARQ does not require a dedicated uplink signaling channel for the acknowledgments messages, it results in better resources utilization in the uplink direction.