On multiple access channels with asymmetric feedback

In multiuser systems, the downlink capacity to different users is often different due to the near-far effect. We capture this asymmetry in the feedback link by introducing an asymmetric feedback model where different users get different amount of channel feedback from the base-station. Then, we derive the outage probability for the maximum-likelihood receiver, allowing us to study the impact of feedback asymmetry on multiuser performance. Interestingly, we discover that introducing systematic asymmetry in feedback can be beneficial in some cases, where only one user can adapt its power/rate to provide systemwide performance equivalent to that obtained by global feedback to all users.