Hybrid Spectrum Usage for Overlaying LTE

Macrocell and Femtocell

Yong Bai, Juejia Zhou, Lan Chen
DOCOMO Beijing Communications Laboratories Co., Ltd
7/F, Raycom Infotech Park Tower A, No.2 Kexueyuan South Road,
Haidian District, Beijing, 100190, P. R. China
Email:{bai, zhoujj, chen}@docomolabs-beijing.com.cn

Abstract—This paper investigates flexible spectrum usages for
LTE network that consists of overlaying macrocell and femtocell.
In such a networking environment, shared spectrum usage and
partitioned spectrum usage are two options to be employed
between two radio tiers. After recognizing the pros and cons
of these two usages, we propose hybrid spectrum usage to
take advantage of their merits. In our proposal, the femtocells
embedded in macrocell are differentiated to inner and outer
femtocells, which operate in partitioned spectrum usage and
shared spectrum usage, respectively. Analysis and performance
evaluation are given to illustrate and justify our proposed method
on improving spectrum utilization for wireless overlay network.
I. I NTRODUCTION
A cellular network is a radio network made up of a number
of radio cells. Each cell is served by a base station (BS) to
provide radio coverage over a limited area. A macrocell has the
widest range of cell size and is usually deployed in rural areas
or along highways served by high-power BSs with antennas
mounted above rooftops. A femtocell has the coverage of 10–
50 meters for stationary or low-mobility users at homes or in
small offices. The cells with different sizes can be deployed
as in a hierarchical cell structure (HCS) to provide multi-
tier network connectivity [1] [2]. For instance, macrocells are
deployed as one radio tier to cover wide areas, and femtocells
are embedded inside macrocell as another radio tier to supply
sporadic overage. The benefits for this arrangement are capac-
ity gain, better coverage, and reduced battery consumption of
handset [3]. In this paper, we consider a two-tier 3GPP LTE
(Long Term Evolution) network that consists of overlaying
macrocell and femtocell. Within the overlapped coverage areas
in such a two-tier system, an UE (User Equipment) has the
options to access either macrocell or femtocell, and it can
switch the access tier by performing vertical handoff. In LTE
network, an UE can access a macrocell BS, i.e., eNodeB
(eNB), or a femtocell BS, i.e., Home eNodeB (HeNB). In this
paper, an UE accessed to a macrocell BS is called an MUE,
and an UE accessed to a femtocell BS is called a HUE.
After acquiring licensed spectrum, wireless cellular operator
can employ different approaches to utilize the spectrum in
a wireless overlay network [4]. The first approach is that two
tiers share the licensed spectrum such that macrocell and fem-
tocell operate in co-channel frequency reuse. This approach is
called shared spectrum usage in this paper. Another approach
is that the licensed spectrum is divided up into separate
portions and each tier operates in a dedicated spectrum portion.
This approach is called partitioned spectrum usage in this
paper. There are both pros and cons of these two usages.
With shared spectrum usage, each radio tier has more available
amount of spectrum but suffers higher cross-tier interference.
On the other hand, with partitioned spectrum usage, the cross-
tier interference is lower, but the available amount of spectrum
is reduced. Higher cross-tier interference with shared spectrum
usage and reduced amount of spectrum with partitioned spec-
trum usage are both drawbacks for achieving high network
capacity. To tackle their drawbacks on spectrum utilization, we
propose hybrid spectrum usage to take advantage of the merits
of above two spectrum usages. In our proposal, each femtocell
embedded inside macrocell can flexibly operate in one of two
usage modes, shared spectrum usage or partitioned spectrum
usage. The favorable usage mode is selected according to the
usage selection criterion and the relevant spatial condition
(e.g., relative location of femtocell) and temporal condition
(e.g., traffic loading of macrocell). The hybrid spectrum usage
is illustrated in a two-tier 3GPP LTE system to demonstrate
its practical implementation.
The most related work to this paper is [5] that presents
a hybrid frequency assignment for femtocells mainly based
on coverage. Interference-limited coverage area (ILCA) of a
co-channel femtocell base station is calculated to determine
the inner and outer region. In LTE network, the criterion
to determine the region should be based on the achievable
throughput instead of coverage since the coverage of femtocell
is determined by pilot power and can be maintained just
by adjusting pilot power. The novel criterion and method to
determine the inner and outer femtocells for hybrid spectrum
usage are proposed in this paper. In addition, the criterion for
both downlink and uplink are considered in this paper while
the case of uplink is not fully examined in [5].
The rest of this paper is organized as follows. Section II
describes the criterion and the relevant conditions on spectrum
usage selection. Section III presents the method of hybrid
spectrum usage for overlaying macrocell and femtocell and
analyzes its practical implementation for LTE downlink and
uplink. In Section IV, we give performance evaluation of
hybrid spectrum usage on improving spectrum utilization via

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 system-level simulation of 3GPP LTE system. Section V
concludes this paper.
II. S PECTRUM U SAGE S ELECTION
In our proposal, a femtocell BS (i.e., HeNB in LTE network)
is assumed to be able to operate in both shared spectrum
usage and partitioned spectrum usage. Each femtocell BS can
select its usage mode individually based on the usage selection
criterion and the relevant conditions. The main purpose to
allow a femtocell to select the spectrum usage mode is to
increase overall spectrum utilization, which can be measured
as area spectral efficiency. The area spectral efficiency of a
cellular system is defined as the achievable throughput per
unit area for the bandwidth available. One measure of area
spectral efficiency of combined macrocell and femtocell is in
terms of bit/s/Hz/macrocell area. The joint capacity
Nf of two-tier
wireless overlay network is given by Cm + i=1 Cf i where
Cm is the throughput achievable by macrocell, Cf i is the
throughput achievable by ith femtocell, and Nf is the number
of femtocells in macrocell. Assume that the total amount of
licensed spectrum is wtot Hz. With shared spectrum usage,
each tier can use all wtot Hz. With partitioned spectrum usage,
wtot Hz spectrum is partitioned to two spectrum potions of wm
Hz and wf Hz (where wm + wf = wtot ), which are assigned
to be the dedicated amounts of spectrum for macrocell and
femtocell, respectively.
The area spectral efficiency, in bit/s/Hz/macrocell area, is thus
Nf
Cm + Cf i
η= i=1
. (1)
wtot
The achievable throughput of macrocell (femtocell) can be
estimated by the Shannon formula
C = w log2 (1 + γ)
where C is achievable throughput, w is the amount of spec-
trum available, and γ is the received signal-to-interference-
plus-noise ratio (SINR). Note that (2) regards the interference
as white Gaussian noise and gives the worst-case estimate of
achievable capacity.
To improve spectrum utilization, the objective of usage mode
selection is set to maximize the area spectrum efficiency as
represented in (1), which
N is equivalent to maximize the joint
two-tier capacity Cm + i=1 f
Cf i . In addition to the objective
to maximize the area spectral efficiency, another factor to
determine the usage mode is the achievable throughput at
each tier. Though the joint two-tier capacity is higher with one
usage mode, the respective achievable throughput of one tier
(Cm or Cf i ) may be too low to support reasonable services
for mobile users. Since shared spectrum usage can cause high
cross-tier interference and reduce the achieved capacity at
each tier, the selection criterion of spectrum usage mode is
formulated to be:
shared spectrum usage is chosen only when both
macrocell and femtocell favors it; otherwise, parti-
tioned spectrum usage is chosen.
Next, we examine the cross-tier interference to deduce the
relevant conditions that affect the decision making on usage
selection. On imposing cross-tier interference, macrocell and
femtocell can play the role of either the interfering party
(aggressor) or the interfered party (victim). Accordingly, the
cross-tier interferences can be classified as four interference
scenarios, i.e., the downlink interference from macrocell BS
(aggressor) to HUE (victim), the downlink interference from a
femtocell (aggressor) to MUE (victim), the unlink interference
from HUE (aggressor) to a macrocell BS (victim), and the
uplink interference from MUE (aggressor) to a femtocell BS
(victim). It is conceivable that the cross-tier interference is
relevant to spatial condition, i.e., the location of HeNB relative
to eNBs. The closer the HeNB locates to an eNB, the higher
the cross-tier interference. Hence, the selection of spectrum
usage mode should take into account the location of HeNB and
the experienced cross-tier interference of MUEs and HUEs.
III. H YBRID S PECTRUM U SAGE M ETHOD
When each HeNB is allowed to select its spectrum us-
age mode based on specific conditions (e.g., location), the
spectrum usage modes of HeNBs within a macrocell become
mixed. Hence, the proposed spectrum usage method is called
hybrid spectrum usage in this paper.
With respect to the spatial condition, the femtocells are dis-
tinguished to be inner and outer femtocells according to the
distance between an HeNB and its embedding eNB (i.e., the
closest eNB from the HeNB). The HeNBs of inner femtocells
operate in partitioned spectrum usage, and the HeNBs of
outer femtocells operate in shared spectrum usage. Denote the
distance between an HeNB and its embedding eNB as d, and
denote the distance threshold to differentiate inner and outer
femtocells as dth . As shown in Fig. 1, the femtocell is an
(2) inner femtocell if an HeNB is located at the position where
d ≤ dth ; otherwise, it is an outer femtocell.
Fig. 1. Overlaying LTE network and hybrid spectrum usage
In practical implementation, the parameter of d can be esti-
mated at HeNB based on the received pilot power of eNB, i.e.,
RSRP (Reference Signal Received Power) in LTE network.
The RSRP can be estimated by the added function at HeNB
or can be estimated by HUE and reported to HeNB via an
added RRC (Radio Resource Control) signalling message.
Thus, dth corresponds to a pilot power threshold, pth . Denote
the estimated value of RSRP as pr . A femtocell is an inner
femtocell if pr ≥ pth ; otherwise, it is an outer femtocell.

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 Using pr for decision making is viewed as a better approach with shared spectrum usage.
than using dth because pr reflects the link quality with actual Since downlink macrocell is an interference-limited system,
pathloss and shadowing between an HeNB and its embedding
dl
Im  N . Due to the fact that pt,m  pt,f and additional
eNB. penetration loss β (typically 10 ∼ 20 dB) for pt,f , Imm dl

d
s
Assume the spectrum usage mode is allowed to be determined If m . Thus, γm ≈ I d , and γm
dl m dl,shared
≈ γm dl,partitioned
. With
m
separately in LTE downlink and uplink, the values of dth for dl,shared dl,partitioned
w > wm , we have Cm > Cm by comparing
downlink and uplink can be different. Next, we clarify how to (3) and (4). Hence, macrocell favors shared spectrum usage
determine the values of dth and pr in downlink and uplink. In in downlink to maximize its capacity. Therefore, to satisfy
the criterion for usage selection, the spectrum usage mode in
the analysis, we consider the case of Nf = 1, e.g., only one downlink depends on the choice of femtocell.
femtocell exists within an macrocell. For the case of Nf > 1, Next, we evaluate the downlink throughput of femtocell.
e.g., multiple femtocells exist within an macrocell, we evaluate The downlink throughput of femtocell with shared spectrum
the performance by simulation. usage, Cfdl,shared , and that with partitioned spectrum usage,
A. Downlink Cfdl,partitioned , can be estimated by
Firstly, we evaluate the downlink throughput of macrocell. Cfdl,shared = wtot log2 (1 + γfdl,shared ) (6)
The downlink throughput of macrocell with shared spectrum
usage, Cm dl,shared
, and that with partitioned spectrum usage and
Cmdl,partitioned
, can be estimated by Cfdl,partitioned = wf log2 (1 + γfdl,partitioned ) (7)
dl,shared
Cm dl,shared
= wtot log2 (1 + γm ) (3) where γfdl,shared
and γfdl,partitioned
denote the downlink
SINRs of HUEs with shared spectrum usage and partitioned
and spectrum usage, respectively.
dl,partitioned
Cm dl,partitioned
= wm log2 (1 + γm ) (4) The downlink SINR of HUE, γfdl , can be evaluated by
dl,shared dl,partitioned
where γm and γm denote the downlink sf
γf =
SINRs of MUEs with shared spectrum usage and partitioned I dl +N
mf
spectrum usage, respectively. Note that the downlink through- pt,f r −α2 (8)
= nm −1 β ρ
put of macrocell should be estimated as the sum of achievable (pt,m d−α1 +
−α1
pt,m yi )10
−
10 10
−
10 +N0 w
i=1
throughput of assigned PRBs (Physical Resource Blocks) of
MUEs. The sum computation is omitted here and hereafter for where
terminology simplicity. sf received signal power at HUE
dl
The downlink SINR of MUE, γm , can be evaluated by dl
Imf downlink marcrocell-to-femtocell interference
γm
dl
= sm
dl +I dl +N
Imm
r distance between HUE and HeNB
fm
−α1
pt,m x0 (5) d distance between HeNB and eNB
= n −1 −α
β ρ yi distance between HUE and ith eNB
− −
pt,m xi 1 +pt,f l−α2 10 10
m
10 10 +N0 w
i=1
w w = wtot with shared spectrum usage; w = wf with
where partitioned spectrum usage.
sm received downlink signal power at MUE dl
Here only cross-tier interference imposed on HUEs, Imf , is
dl
Imm downlink marcrocell-to-macrocell interference considered since no intra-tier interference exists when Nf = 1.
Ifdlm downlink femtocell-to-macrocell interference It can be observed from (8) that γfdl depends on d, the
N background noise power distance between an HeNB and its embedding eNB. When a
pt,m transmit power of eNB femtocell is located very close to eNB, the effect of downlink
x0 distance between severing eNB and MUE interference dominates rather than noise, i.e., Imfdl
 N . Due
α1 path loss exponent at macrocell dl
to large ACIR, Imf with partitioned spectrum usage is much
nm number of eNBs less than that with shared spectrum usage. Hence, we have
xi distance between MUE and ith eNB Cfdl,partitioned > Cfdl,shared . Thus, the femtocell favors parti-
pt,f transmit power of HeNB tioned spectrum usage when it locates very close to eNB. With
l distance between MUE and HeNB the increase of d, Imf dl
reduces with shared spectrum usage
α2 path loss exponent at femtocell due to increased pathloss, and hence Cfdl,shared increases.
β penetration loss in dB from outdoor to indoor When the femtocell is located at a certain distance away
ρ ACIR (Adjacent Channel Interference Ratio) in dB from eNB such that Imf dl
reduces significantly, w becomes
N0 power spectral density of background noise the dominant factor on determining the achievable throughput
w w = wtot with shared spectrum usage; w = wm with instead of γ. Consequently, Cfdl,shared > Cfdl,partitioned .
partitioned spectrum usage. Thus, the femtocell favors shared spectrum usage when it
Here the downlink interference imposed on MUEs includes locates at a certain distance away from eNB. The distance
dl
both intra-tier interference, Imm , and cross-tier interference,
dl threshold, ddlth , can be determined under the condition that the
If m . The cross-tier interference with partitioned spectrum
usage is assumed to be adjacent channel interference, which achievable downlink throughput of femtocell is the same as
is reduced by Adjacent Channel Interference Ratio (ACIR), that with either of two spectrum usage modes, i.e., d = ddl th if
typically over 40 dB, compared to the co-channel interference Cfdl,shared (d) = Cfdl,partitioned (d).

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 B. Uplink a function of d as seen in (10). Additional femtocell can use
In uplink, we first evaluate the achievable uplink throughput the values of dul ul
th and pth to decide its usage mode.
of femtocell. The uplink SINR of HeNB, γful , can be evaluated
by IV. P ERFORMANCE E VALUATION
The simulation parameters are given in Table 1, which
sul
f p̂t,f r−α2
γful = = n (9) are in line with 3GPP LTE specifications [6] [7] [8]. In our
Imf
ul
+N m
β ρ
p̂ u−α1 10− 10 10− 10 + N0 w
i=1 t,m i simulation, the overlaying LTE network consists of macrocells
sul received signal power at HeNB and femtocells. The simulated network layout assumes a
f
ul
Imf uplink macrocell-to-femtocell interference hexagonal grid with 19 macrocell BSs (eNBs) and 3 sectors
p̂t,f transmit power of HUE per eNB with a center-excited structure. The central macrocell
p̂t,m transmit power of MUE is a reference cell-site when collecting performance results;
nm number of MUEs in macrocells other 18 macrocells act two rings of interferers to the central
ui distance between HeNB and ith MUE. macrocell. The femtocells are assumed to have a circular
If no active MUE is near the HeNB, the femtocell uplink coverage with radius 10 meters. For the case of Nf = 1, there
ul
is largely a noise-limited system. Hence, Imf ≈ N , and is only one HeNB that is located in the central macrocell with
sul distance, d, to the central eNB. For the case of Nf > 1, there
γf ≈ Nf . Considering the throughput of femtocell on average,
are Nf HeNBs that are located randomly in each macrocell of
Cful,shared > Cful,partitioned . Hence, the femtocell favors all 19 macrocells. The active UEs, whose number is decided
shared spectrum usage to maximize its capacity. Therefore,
to satisfy the criterion for usage selection, the spectrum usage in the initialization phase and kept constant for the whole
mode for uplink depends on the choice of macrocell. simulation time, are uniformly distributed over the network
Next, we evaluate the achievable uplink throughput of macro- area. A single transmit antenna at the UE and two receive
ul
cell. The uplink SINR of macrocell, γm , can be evaluated by antennas at the BS are used with maximal ratio combining
sul (MRC). With shared spectrum usage, the available bandwidth
γm
ul
= m
ul +I ul +N
Imm
fm for macrocell and femtocell are both 20MHz. With partitioned
−α1
= n −1
p̂t,m x̂ spectrum usage, the available bandwidth for macrocell and
−α1
nf −1 i −
β
−
ρ
p̂t,f d−α1 10 femtocell is 15MHz and 5MHz, respectively. The cross-tier
m
p̂t,m vi + 10 10 10 +N0 w
i=1 i=1
(10) interference in partitioned mode is assumed to be adjacent-
where channel interference, and the ACIR is set to 45dB for all the
nf number of HUEs in femtocell PRBs in the adjacent 5MHz. Furthermore, we assume that 10%
vi distance between ith HUE and eNB. of the total BS transmit power is allocated for RSRP signal.
ul ul,partitioned ul,shared
As γm is a function of d, Cm > Cm The signaling overhead is assumed to be 30%.
when the femtocell is located close to eNB. However,
ul,partitioned ul,shared
Cm > Cm when the femtocell is located TABLE I
at certain distance away from eNB. The specific distance that S IMULATION PARAMETERS
the throughputs are equal with either mode can be set to be the
uplink distance threshold, dulth , to determine the spectrum usage
modes, i.e., d = dulth if Cm
ul,shared
(d) = Cm ul,partitioned
(d). Macrocell Femtocell
For the case of Nf > 1, the aggregate interference on the 20MHz (shared) 20MHz (shared)
macrocell uplink from both MUEs in other macrocells and System bandwidth
HUEs needs to be considered. The interference level can be 15MHz (partitioned) 5MHz (partitioned)
measured by Interference over Thermal (IoT), which is defined Cell layout
Hexagonal grid,19 BSs, Circular cell,
as the ratio between the interference plus thermal noise over 3 sectors per eNB 1 sector per HeNB
ul
thermal noise. The uplink aggregate IoT of macrocell, IoTm , Antenna gain BS:14 dBi, UE:0dBi BS:5 dBi, UE:0dBi
is evaluated by Cell size ISD=500 m cell radius=10m
ul Imm
ul
+ Ifulm +N 128.1 + 37.6 log10 d, 127.0 + 30 log10 d,
IoTm = 10log10 ( ) dB. (11) Pathloss
N d in [km] d in [km]
The maximal allowed aggregate interference in macrocell Lognormal shadowing 8 dB 10 dB
th th Penetration loss 20 dB 20 dB
uplink can be set as the total IoT threshold, IoTtot . If IoTtot is
per-defined, the allowed IoT introduced by femtocells, IoTfth , BS TX power 49 dBm 20 dBm
can be calculated after taking out the current aggregate IoT at UE power class 23 dBm 23 dBm
cur th
macrocell, IoTm , from IoTtot . That is BS noise figure 5 dB 5 dB
IoT th
tot
cur
IoTm UE noise figure 9 dB 9 dB
IoTfth = 10log10 (10 10 − 10 10 + 1) dB. (12) Thermal noise level -174 dBm/Hz -174 dBm/Hz
IoTfth can be used for deciding whether additional femtocell Ave. number of UEs 10 per sector 4 per cell
(when Nf > 1) can be allowed to operate in the shared spec-
I ul +N
trum usage. After IoTfth = 10log10 ( f mN ) is determined, Firstly, the simulation is performed for the case of Nf = 1,
dul ul ul
th and pth can be calculated inversely from If m since it is i.e., only one femtocell is placed within the central macrocell.

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 Downlink Throughput of eNB
60 20
shared shared
partitioned 18 partitioned
50
16

14
40
Throughput (Mbps)

Throughput (Mbps)
12

30 10

8
20
6

4
10
2

0 0
0 25 50 75 100 125 150 175 200 225 250 275 0 25 50 75 100 125 150 175 200 225 250 275
Distance between HeNB and eNB (m) Distance between HeNB and central eNB (m)

Fig. 2. Downlink throughput of eNB Fig. 4. Uplink throughput of eNB

Downlink Throughput of HeNB Uplink Throughput of HeNB

60 30
shared
partitioned
shared
50 25
partitioned

40 20
Throughput (Mbps)

Throughput (Mbps)
30 15

20 10

10 5

0 0
0 25 50 75 100 125 150 175 200 225 250 275 0 25 50 75 100 125 150 175 200 225 250 275
Distance between HeNB and eNB (m) Distance between HeNB and eNB (m)

Fig. 3. Downlink throughput of HeNB Fig. 5. Uplink throughput of HeNB

Fig. 2 shows the downlink per-sector throughput of central
eNB versus the location of HeNB. The throughput of eNB
with shared spectrum usage and partitioned spectrum us-
age are depicted as solid line and dotted line, respectively.
dl,shared dl,partitioned
It is seen from Fig. 2 that Cm > Cm
dl,shared
and Cm does not vary very much as the location of
HeNB changes. Fig. 3 shows the downlink throughput of
femtocell as we change the location of HeNB. It is seen
from Fig. 3 that when the HeNB is located close to eNB,
Cfdl,shared < Cfdl,partitioned . When the HeNB is located at
about 25m away from eNB, Cfdl,shared > Cfdl,partitioned .
The distance of 25m (intersection of solid line and dotted
line) where Cfdl,shared = Cfdl,partitioned can be set to be the
downlink distance threshold, ddl th , to determine the spectrum
usage mode. The corresponding downlink RSRP threshold,
th = 49 dBm−10 dB−(128.1+37.6log10(25/1000)) dB =
pdl
−21.2 dBm, where 10dB is introduced as the pilot power of
eNB is assumed to be 10% of the total eNB transmit power.
Fig. 4 and Fig. 5 show the uplink sector throughput of
macrocell and the uplink throughput of femtocell respectively
as we change the location of HeNB. Uplink fractional power
control is employed for an UE depending on its pathloss to
BS such that an UE does not always transmit with its full
power. The formula for fractional uplink power control is
P = min{Pmax , P0 + 10 log10 M + αP L} where Pmax is
UE’s maximum transmit power, P0 is cell/UE specific value,
, M is the number of assigned PRBs, P L is the pathloss from
UE to eNB/HeNB, and α is pathloss compensation factor [9].
In our simulation, P0 is assumed to be cell specific and is
set to -60 dBm, and α is set to 0.6. It is seen from Fig. 5
that Cful,shared > Cful,partitioned , and Cful,shared does not
vary very much as the location of HeNB changes. However,
it is seen from Fig. 4 that Cm ul,shared
< Cm ul,partitioned
when
the HeNB is close to eNB. When the HeNB is located at
about 50m away from eNB, Cm ul,shared
> Cm ul,partitioned
. The
distance of 50m (intersection of solid line and dotted line)
where Cm ul,shared
= Cm ul,partitioned
can be set to be the uplink
distance threshold, dul
th , to determine the spectrum usage mode.
Fig. 6 shows the uplink IoT of eNB as the location of
HeNB changes. In Fig. 6, the average IoT introduced by other
macrocells, IoTm , is 10.8 dB. As shown in Fig. 6, the closer
the HeNB locates to eNB, the higher uplink interference the
eNB suffers. At the uplink border dul
th (50m), the interference

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 Uplink Throughput of eNB
35
IOT from eNBs
12
IOT from HeNB
30 total IOT

10 P of HUE=−60dBm
0
25 P0 of HUE=−75dBm

Throughput (Mbps)
8
20
IOT (dB)

6
15

4
10

5 2

0 0
0 25 50 75 100 125 150 175 200 225 250 275 01 10 50 100
Distance between HeNB and central eNB (m) Number of HeNBs per macrocell

Fig. 6. Uplink IoT at eNB with shared spectrum usage Fig. 8. Uplink throughput of eNB with multiple HeNBs

from HeNB IoTf = 7dB, and the total IoT is 12dB. The total V. C ONCLUSIONS
IoT (i.e., 12 dB) at dulth can be set as the allowed total IoT This paper proposes hybrid spectrum usage to improve spec-
th th
threshold, IoTtot . If IoTtot is per-defined to be 12 dB, after trum utilization for overlaying LTE macrocell and femtocell.
taking out IoTm (10.8 dB), the calculated IoTfth = 7 dB. The HeNB at a femtocell is allowed to select its spectrum us-
Then, dul ul
th =50 m and the corresponding pth =-40.2 dBm can age flexibly to be either partitioned or shared spectrum usages,
be derived from IoTfth . and hence the usage modes of femtocells embedded within
macrocell are mixed. The criterion to determine the usage
CDF of Downlink Throughput of MUEs
1 mode is formulated and the relevant threshold parameters for
no HeNB
0.9 1 HeNB
decision making are deduced. For practical implementation,
0.8
100 HeNBs it is revealed that the criterion simply becomes comparing
0.7
the estimated RSRP of eNB at HeNB with the threshold in
0.6
both downlink and uplink. The effectiveness of the proposed
method is illustrated by system-level simulation for 3GPP LTE
CDF

0.5
network.
0.4

0.3
0.2
0.1
0
0 1 2 3
Throughput of MUE (Mbps)
Fig. 7. CDF of downlink throughputs of MUEs with multiple HeNBs
Next, the simulation is performed for the case of Nf > 1.
Fig. 7 shows the CDF of downlink throughputs of MUEs
with multiple HeNBs. It is seen that the CDF of MUE’s
downlink throughput does not change very much with the
number of HeNBs. It implies that the impact of HeNBs on
MUE’s downlink throughput is not significant on average.
Fig. 8 shows the uplink throughput of eNB with multiple
HeNBs. When there are multiple HeNBs, the impact of the
cross-tier interference from HUEs on eNB uplink performance
is serious if only fractional uplink power control is employed.
It is seen that the uplink throughput of eNB reduces with
the increase of number of HeNBs. However, if P0 is set to
-75 dBm for HUEs, the impact on eNB uplink is reduced
significantly. Thus, different values of P0 for macrocell and
femtocell are recommended to be used in practical system as
a means to mitigate the cross-tier interference.
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This full text paper was peer reviewed at the direction of IEEE Communications Society subject matter experts for publication in the IEEE "GLOBECOM" 2009 proceedings.