Femto-relays: A power efficient coverage extension mechanism for femtocells

Abstract

Femtocell, also known as home base station is one of the promising technologies that ensure a steady increase in system capacity, improvement in service quality and a better data rate for users mainly in the indoor environment. Even though femtocells can provide improved home coverage and capacity for indoor users, many a times, these femtocells are under-utilized when they do not serve any voice or data request. In this paper a novel idea to extend the coverage of femtocells beyond the home environment through multihops is proposed. The idea is to exploit the under-utilized femtocells to serve the high data rate requests of many outdoor UEs. This will not only extend the coverage of femtocell but also relax the burden on the macro cell base station, improve the cell capacity and ensure power efficiency.