Primary component carrier selection for a heterogeneous network: A comparison of Selfish, Altruistic and Symmetric Strategies

We study a distributed approach for Primary Component Carrier (PCC) selection to manage interference and to improve cell edge performance in a heterogeneous network. To avoid cell outage caused by PCC selection based on path loss between neighboring base stations (BSs), we argue that carrier reselection based on handover measurements performed by the User Equipments (UEs) is necessary. We propose three strategies of PCC reselection; a Selfish, Altruistic and Symmetric approach. These are based on avoiding interference caused by neighboring cells, avoiding causing interference to neighbors, and avoiding both, respectively. The performance of the proposed strategies is compared to PCC selection based on path loss. We conclude that PCC reselection based on UE measurements completely removes outage and improves cell edge performance.