Radio resource management in integrated wired/wireless LTE femtocell networks

Abstract

In this paper, radio resource management (RRM) in LTE femtocell networks is investigated in an integrated wired/wireless environment. In such a scenario, femtocell access points (FAPs) are assumed connected via wired links to a central controller within a certain vicinity (e.g. building, compound, hotel, campus, etc.). Consequently, it becomes possible to perform RRM in a centralized and controlled way in order to enhance the quality of service (QoS) performance for the users in the network. A utility maximization framework is presented, and an RRM algorithm that can be used to maximize various utility functions is proposed. The performance tradeoffs between various utility functions are studied and assessed. Furthermore, the joint wired/wireless RRM approach is compared to the distributed RRM case, where each FAP acts as an independent wireless network without central control. Simulation results show that the integrated wired/wireless approach leads to significant gains compared to the wireless only case.