Analysis of Carrier Deployment Strategies for LTE-A HetNets with Multicell Cooperation

This paper studies how to best utilize two carriers (F1 and F2) in a heterogeneous network (HetNet) where both macro and small cells are deployed. Two well known multi-cell cooperation techniques are applied: enhanced inter-cell interference coordination (eICIC) on carriers that are co-channel deployed at both macro and small cells and inter-site carrier aggregation (CA) between carriers that are separately deployed at macro and small cells. Extensive performance results with different carrier deployment strategies with/without multi-cell cooperation are presented under realistic time-variant traffic conditions. For the considered HetNet scenario, the carrier deployment strategy resulting in the best downlink end-user throughput performance is found to be co-channel for low load conditions, and one carrier deployed at the macro and two carriers deployed at small cells (called hybrid deployment #2 in our study) for high load conditions. Introducing multi-cell cooperations in the form of eICIC and inter-site CA between the macro and small cells can significantly improve the performance for co-channel and hybrid deployment #2 at high load and low load conditions, respectively.