On downlink load estimation for LTE in the context of self-organizing networks

Radio Resource Management (RRM) and Self-Organizing Network (SON) are two very important aspects of today´s wireless cellular networks. Among them lies the fundamental notion of cell load. An accurate estimation of the cell load facilitates optimal operations of RRM/SON algorithms. In the case when frequency-domain power control (FDPC) is employed in mitigating intercell interference, transmit power spectral density can be non-uniform by design. Thus, it is no longer relevant to define the cell load simply in terms of frequency resource utilization as in existing literatures. In this paper, load estimation methods are proposed in the context of FDPC for LTE downlink, and an numerical illustration is provided.