Enhanced Inter-cell Interference in LTE-Advanced: Heterogeneous Networks

Abstract

Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) has continuously been working on improving cellular experience for users. The latest developments in the cellular standards of the Fourth Generation has been towards providing better throughput, higher data rate, improved and efficient service through signal modulations and coding schemes. One of their core improvements is the introduction of heterogeneous networks. Heterogeneous networks (Hetnets) are a combination of macro cells and small cell networks that consist of picocells, femtocells, relay nodes and radio remote head. The introduction of small cells has led to co-channel interference between the multi-layer networks. New proposals have been suggested to mitigate interference between femto-macrocells and pico-macrocells, by blanking orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) symbols or time shifting the same. Resource assignment is then done based on the amount of interference Experienced by the users.