Self-organized neighborhood mobility load balancing for LTE networks

This paper investigates mobility load balancing (MLB) in a hexagonal LTE (Long Term Evolution) macro cellular deployment. Gain and cost of MLB is evaluated by downlink (DL) system simulations in terms of quality of service (QoS) enhancement versus increased resource expenses. A novel distributed SON (self-organizing network) algorithm, termed as neighborhood mobility load balancing (NMLB) algorithm, is presented which also includes non-adjacent neighborhood cells in the optimization area as compared to the classical approach in which only adjacent neighbor cells are considered in the optimization area. The simulation results show that NMLB gives a significant gain w.r.t. the traffic throughput as compared to the classical MLB in complex load scenarios where the capacity is not available in the adjacent neighbor cells but further away in the neighborhood cells.