Interference coordination in wireless networks: A flow-level perspective

In dense wireless networks, inter-cell interference highly limits the capacity and quality of service perceived by users. Previous work has shown that approaches based on frequency reuse provide important capacity gains. We model a wireless network with Inter-Cell Interference Coordination (ICIC) at the flow level where users arrive and depart dynamically, in order to optimize quality of service indicators perceivable by users such as file transfer time for elastic traffic. We propose an algorithm to tune the parameters of ICIC schemes automatically based on measurements. The convergence of the algorithm to a local optimum is proven, and a heuristic to improve its convergence speed is given. Numerical experiments show that the distance between local optima and the global optimum is very small, and that the algorithm is fast enough to track changes in traffic on the time scale of hours. The proposed algorithm can be implemented in a distributed way with very small signaling load.