Control Channel Inter-cell Interference Coordination

Abstract

From its first release, the standard for long-term evolution (LTE) supports frequency-dependent interference-aware scheduling of the data transmissions. This feature enables satisfactory inter-cell interference coordination (ICIC) in the user equipment (UE) plane on the basis of fractional frequency reuse or multi-point transmission techniques. This chapter focuses on the discussion of the concept of orthogonally filled subframe (OFS), a standards-compliant solution that minimizes the failures of the LTE control signaling in a resource-efficient manner. The OFS concept can be implemented by using either a proactive or a reactive implementation philosophy. The chapter discusses each of these approaches in more detail, and also describes general remarks applying to both approaches. It further describes the system model that assumes a co-channel scenario in which the small cell LTE resources direct overlap with the macrocell LTE resources.