Dynamic ICIC in LTE-Advanced Networks for Inter-Cell Interference Mitigation

Dynamic inter-cell interference coordination (ICIC) is a multi-point cooperation technology that has attracted significant interest for inter-cell interference mitigation in wireless communication systems due to its potential performance gain, robustness and relatively low complexity. This paper describes mechanisms for implementation of dynamic ICIC as well as the standardized support that exists for it in Long-Term Evolution Advanced (LTE-A) Release 12. Corresponding evaluation results are also provided, which show that dynamic ICIC can provide useful and stable performance gain in both homogeneous and heterogeneous networks. Due to the robustness against backhaul delay and supported interface signaling in LTE-A, dynamic ICIC has the potential to be used for both single-vendor and multi-vendor eNB cooperation deployments.