On the asymptotic sum-rate of uplink MIMO cellular systems in the presence of non-Gaussian inter-cell interference

In this paper we consider a scenario, where several mobile multi-antenna terminals communicate with a multi-antenna base station within a cellular communication system over the flat Rayleigh fading channel. In addition, several terminals from the neighboring cell cause interference. For such a scenario, we derive, using the replica method, the asymptotic sum-rate of the communication in the large-system limit for arbitrary signal constellations. Moreover, we show via numerical results that when the interfering terminals use a QPSK constellation, the resulting interference becomes easier to handle. In effect, we may be able to accumulate more interfering transmitter-receiver pairs within the same area as compared to the case of Gaussian signals. Monte-Carlo simulations show that the derived asymptotic expression matches well with the simulated values even for small numbers of antennas.