FemtoHaul: Using Femtocells with Relays to Increase Macrocell Backhaul Bandwidth

The ever increasing user demand for highly data-intensive applications is motivating cellular operators to provide more data services. However, the operators are suffering from the heavy budgetary burden of upgrading their infrastructure. Most macrocell Base Stations still connect to backhauls with capacities of less than 8 Mbps, much too low to be able to serve all voice and data users in the cell. This so-called macrocell backhaul bandwidth shortage problem is encumbering the growth of cellular data services. In this paper, we propose a novel solution, FemtoHaul, which efficiently exploits the potential of femtocells to bear the macrocell backhaul traffic by using relays, enhancing the data rates of cellular subscribers. We design a system architecture and its related signaling and scheduling strategies. Extensive simulations demonstrate that FemtoHaul can effectively serve more users and support higher data demand with the existing macrocell backhaul capacity.