Impact of User Identities and Access Conditions on Downlink Performance in Closed Small-Cell Networks

Abstract

This paper investigates the effect of various operation parameters on the downlink user performance in overlaid small-cell networks. The case study considers closed-access small cells (e.g., femtocells), wherein only active authorized user equipment (UE) can be served, each of which is allocated a single downlink channel at a time. On the other hand, the macrocell base station can unconditionally serve macrocell UEs that exist inside its coverage space. The available channels can be shared simultaneously in the macrocell network and the femtocell network. Moreover, a channel can be reused only at the macrocell base station. The analysis provides quantitative approaches to model UE identities, their likelihoods of being active, and their likelihoods of producing interference, considering UE classifications, locations, and access capabilities. Moreover, it develops models for various interference sources observed from effective interference femtocells, considering femtocells capacities and operation conditions. The associated formulations to describe a desired UE performance and the impact of the number of available channels and the adopted channel assignment approach are thoroughly investigated. The results are generally presented for any channel models of interference sources and the desired source of the served UE. Moreover, specific channel models are then adopted, for which generalized closed-form analytical results for the desired UE outage probability performance are obtained. Numerical and simulation results are presented to further clarify the main outcomes of the developed analysis.