INTERFERENCES AND SOLUTIONS

IN LONG TERM EVOLUTION (LTE)

NETWORK: A REVIEW

Ainnur Eiza Azhar

ABSTRACT

This paper reviewed

several interference management techniques
based on 3GPP in Rel-8 until Rel-12
covers several interferences
focus on victim users
BACKGROUND OF PROBLEMS (1/2)
LTE network
broadband wireless technology introduced in Rel-8 by
3GPP
high data rate, low latency, greater spectral efficiency
and a pure packet switched core network with scalable
bandwidth capacity[1].

Malaysia - undergoing a transition 3G cellular

network to 4G

Ericsson- smart phones traffic growth is 11 times

between the year 2015 to 2021 and 90% of future
mobile data traffic originated from smart phones,
[2].
BACKGROUND OF PROBLEMS (2/2)

essential for network operators to find a

countermeasure so their subscribers will not
switch to other competitors.

add towers
- cost of towers is excessive.

frequency reuse technique

- maximize the number of users by using minimum
number of BSs.
BENEFIT OF LTE - SUPPORTS LOW POWER
NODES (LPNS) DEPLOYMENT (1/2)
Femtocell
very small, short-range low-power BSs [6], user-deployed,
cost effective wireless access points[7]

introduced in LTE Rel-10 - operate in licensed spectrum

via Internet backhaul[6].

fills the coverage holes of macrocell network [7] by

performing the resource assignation [1], reduced
bandwidth load and fulfil power requirements.

increased average revenue per user [8]and are used to

enhance poor cellular coverage e.g. indoor areas.

typical indoor coverage - about ten meters[7].

BENEFIT OF LTE - SUPPORTS LOW POWER
NODES (LPNS) DEPLOYMENT (2/2)
Picocell
deployed by the operator to improves coverage, capacity
and better spectrum reuse in areas with high density of
users (hotspots) [9].

Relay node
not require a dedicated backhaul network
enhance coverage and increase capacity at poor coverage
areas[4].

Wireless Fidelity (Wi-Fi)

cheaper wireless coverage extension
widely deployed in houses or offices.
short coverage and no guarantee of quality of service (QoS).
INTERFERENCES IN LTE NETWORK
(1/3)
deployment of LPNs in LTE HetNets
multi-tier problems,
power different problems
coexistence with unlicensed spectrum bands problems,[11] [12] [13].

LTE network - inter-cell interference due to intra-cell

interference can be neglected because LTE users are
orthogonal [10].

2 types of interferences in HetNets

Cross-tier interference occurs between macro and small cells when
same bandwidth (resource block (RB)) is allocated for the UEs of both
macro and small cell.
Co-tier interference occurs when all small cells (also true for macro
BSs) share the same spectrum resources through frequency reuse one,
[16].

lead to network degradation - no countermeasures taken

INTERFERENCES IN LTE NETWORK
(2/3)

Rel-8 Rel-10 Rel-11 Rel-12

ICIC eICIC CoMP D2D

FFR ABS
INTERFERENCES IN LTE NETWORK
(3/3)
Power control
not suitable to apply at HetNets - distance of user to small cell is
in very small areas which are from 25 to 30m [1].

measured by several key items - capacity and signal-to-

noise ratio (SINR).

Focus on - cell-edge areas, indoors and interference with

other users or nodes or policies

All the techniques - compared in terms of different criteria

and their variables or parameters usage
INTERFERENCE MANAGEMENT
TECHNIQUES
Fractional Frequency Reuse (FFR)
Almost Blank Subframe (ABS)

Power Control

Resource Allocation

Relays-Enhanced System

Device-to-Device (D2D)
FRACTIONAL FREQUENCY REUSE
(FFR)(1/3)
dividing the cell into two regions and allocate it
with different frequency reuse schemes to avoid
adjacent interferences.
C.Bouras et.al [6]
LTE-femtocell
inner and outer region
spectrums - three sub-bands
assigned to the cell edge users
FRACTIONAL FREQUENCY REUSE
(FFR)(2/3)
P.Gao et.al [8]
two frequency reuse pattern
with certain distances R0 and Rsafe
combines with spectrum sensing scheme
disadvantage - patterns are complex.

H.Zhuang et.al [20]

splitted the spectrum- inner band and outer band
advantages - can adapt to real dynamic traffic maps
and reduce the operational cost.
consume more time - genetic algorithm for traffic
map
FRACTIONAL FREQUENCY REUSE
(FFR)(3/3)

D.Gonz et.al [21]

Soft Frequency Resource (SFR)
interior and exterior area using the
threshold value of SINR, STH
Disadvantage - focuses on macro network only.

A. B. Patel et.al [12]

SFR for LTE-femtocell network
dividing a cell in two parts using SINR value
5 dB as reference
outage probability comparison- lower values
ALMOST BLANK SUBFRAME (ABS)(1/3)
subframes with reduced downlink transmission power
or activity - intended to coordinate macro eNBs and
small cells transmissions on heterogeneous
deployments - small cells did not suffer severe
interference during those silent periods.

backward compatibility with LTE Rel-8 and Rel-9.

E. Almeida et.al [22]

LTE-Wi-Fi coexistence network
not need - reference signals
Wi-Fi nodes - detect low power at
silent subframe - allocate its band - avoid
interferences
focuses only in indoor environment.
ALMOST BLANK SUBFRAME (ABS)(2/3)
D. Lopez-Porez [23]
subframe splitted into two fragments (RB/2)
transmitted with different sector configuration i.e. 60
degrees
small cell - see different signal qualities (SINR) in
both spectrum fragments depending on the small cell
locations.
improve average
throughput and
decreased the ABS duty.
drawback - focuses for
outdoor
ALMOST BLANK SUBFRAME (ABS)(3/3)
R. Singh et.al [9]
protected subframe (PSF)
Advantage - use effective data rate as variable.
improved in total capacity achieved by the system;
while providing better signal-interference-to-noise
ratio (SINR) to the victim users and improved the
capacity achieved by MeNB victim users.
disadvantage - not consider distance parameter.
POWER CONTROL (1/2)
avoiding small cells to transmit more power than the
users required.

M. Iturralde et.al [1]

power control of femtocell
using 2-person game bargaining(throughput and SINR)
improved - throughput, Packet Loss Ratio (PLR) and SINR.
drawback - interference value at macrocell is not taken into
account in this literature.

A. Alexiou et.al [24]

priority grouping
advantages - distance and load as the parameters.
drawback - more time consuming.
POWER CONTROL (2/2)
F. S. Chaves et.al [25]
interference aware operating point (LTE-Wi-Fi)
improvement of Wi-Fi coexistence and slightly
reduces in LTE network.
Disadvantage - focuses only at indoor network.

K. Khawam et.al [26]

focuses on outdoor areas
used non-cooperative game
advantages - can be controlled based on only local
information and has low convergence time.
drawback - only for macro network.
RESOURCE ALLOCATION
blocking and denying access to the downlink
resources which are subjected to greater co-tier and
cross-tier interferences.

A. Adouane et.al [19]

replicator dynamics algorithm
quite attractive - convergence time and total mean cost.
focuses for the macro network.

V. Sathya [16]
Variable Radius algorithm
distance of this identified UE from the femtocell where r is
inner region radius and is the threshold distance.
r =(r + )/2 (4)
RELAYS-ENHANCED SYSTEM
appears to relay UE (RUE) as macro BS and
received all data from it when the RUE is near
the relay.

K. Ks et.al [4]
transparent relay-enhanced system, indoor
not required dedicated backhaul network
CCI-suppressing
improvement in mean throughput of the network.
disadvantage - needs a large number of relays which
consists of 140 relays across 21 sectors.
DEVICE-TO-DEVICE (D2D)

operator-controlled with the possibility of tight

control of D2D resources to manage ICI for victim
users.

R. Tanbourgi et.al [18]

three possible deployment - intra-cell D2D
cooperation, inter-cell D2D cooperation and one-way
D2D cooperation.
Advantage - not tied to a backhaul.
may decays much slower with distance due to the
cell-association mechanism.
COMPARISON
CONCLUSION
Interference - crucial matter need to study- avoid
degradation in LTE network.

network operators - design interference

management - cost-effective & network friendly
solutions.

interference management at physical layer in

OFDM, cell planning, using small cells instead
BSs, schedulers and others.

Variables used - RSRP, bitrate, distance and

others.