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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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the problem of energy efficiency in cellular heterogeneous networks (HetNets) is investigated using radio resource and power management combined with the base station (BS) ON/OFF switching. The objective is to minimize the total power consumption of the network while satisfying the quality of service requirements of each connected user. We consider the case of coexisting macrocell BS, small cell BSs, and private femtocell access points (FAPs). Three different network scenarios are investigated, depending on the status of the FAPs, i.e., HetNets without FAPs, HetNets with closed FAPs, and HetNets with semiclosed FAPs. A unified framework is proposed to simultaneously allocate spectrum resources to users in an energy efficient manner and switch OFF redundant small cell BSs. The high complexity dual decomposition technique is employed to achieve optimal solutions for the problem. A low complexity iterative algorithm is also proposed and its performances are compared to those of the optimal technique. The particularly interesting case of semiclosed FAPs, in which the FAPs accept to serve external users, achieves the highest energy efficiency due to increased degrees of freedom. In this paper, a cooperation scheme between FAPs and mobile operator is also investigated. The incentives for FAPs, e.g., renewable energy sharing and roaming prices, enabling cooperation are discussed to be considered as a useful guideline for interoperator agreements. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper investigates low-complexity joint interference avoidance and desired link improvement for single-channel allocation in multiuser multiantenna access points (APs) for open-access small cells. It is considered that an active user is equipped with an antenna array that can be used to suppress interference sources but not to provide spatial diversity. On the other hand, the operation of APs can be coordinated to meet design requirements, where each of which can unconditionally utilize assigned physical channels. Moreover, each AP is equipped with uncorrelated antennas that can be reused simultaneously to serve many active users. The analysis provides new approaches to exploit physical channels, transmit antennas, and APs to mitigate interference, while providing the best possible link gain to an active user through the most suitable interference-free channel. The event of concurrent service requests placed by active users on a specific interference-free channel is discussed for either interference avoidance through identifying unshared channels or desired link improvement via multiuser scheduling. The applicability of the approaches to balance downlink loads is explained, and practical scenarios due to imperfect identification of interference-free channels and/or the scheduled user are thoroughly investigated. The developed results are applicable for any statistical and geometric models of the allocated channel to an active user, as well as channel conditions of interference users. They can be used to study various performance measures. Numerical and simulation results are presented to explain some outcomes of this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]