Autonomic downlink inter-cell interference coordination in LTE Self-Organizing Networks

This paper provides a mathematical formulation for Downlink Inter-Cell Interference Coordination (ICIC), in the context of a 3GPP Long-Term Evolution (LTE) Self-Organizing Network (SON). SON concepts have been introduced in LTE standardization in order to increase the network performance and reduce the operational expenditure for operators. Among the proposed SON use cases, ICIC is of utmost importance, since, in OFDMA-based networks, inter-cell interference is the main factor hindering the achievement of the high rate requirements, especially in downlink, where broadband services exist. Coordinated usage of resources in the related cells, by means of a scheme that is distributed, autonomic, context-aware, policy-driven and knowledge-based, is proposed in this study as an effective ICIC approach. A set of results is provided, for showing the effectiveness of the scheme in terms of Quality of Service and spectral efficiency.