On the impact of limited-capacity backhaul and inter-users links in cooperative multicell networks

Cooperation based technologies are expected to play a major role in future cellular or, more generally, infrastructure networks. Both multicell processing (cooperation at the base station level) and relaying (cooperation at the user level) are currently being studied. Here, recent works dealing with the performance of multicell processing and user cooperation under the assumption of error-free but limited-capacity inter-base station and inter-user links, respectively, are considered. The survey focuses on related results derived for non-fading uplink and downlink channels of simple cellular setups. The analytical treatment, facilitated by these simple models, enhances the insight into the limitations imposed by capacity constraints on the performance gains provided by cooperative techniques.