Fractional cooperation in femtocell networks

In femtocell networks, large numbers of femtocell access points (FAPs) are deployed and integrated into a cellular network. In this paper, a novel architecture for femtocell networks is proposed, known as fractional cooperation. Using this method, connections from mobile users to multiple FAPs are permitted. This architecture is analogous to fractional cooperation in wireless relay networks. Analytical and simulation results are presented, which indicate that large gains are possible over conventional cellular-style architectures.