OFDMA femtocells: A roadmap on interference avoidance

TLDR

OFDMA femtocells are seen as a solution to indoor coverage and traffic growth, yet their deployment can degrade macrocell performance, making spectrum allocation and interference avoidance urgent challenges for operators. This article presents a coverage and interference analysis of a realistic OFDMA macro/femtocell scenario and offers guidelines for addressing spectrum allocation and interference mitigation. The analysis focuses on self‑configuration and self‑optimization techniques to prevent interference within the network.

Abstract

OFDMA femtocells have been pointed out by the industry as a good solution not only to overcome the indoor coverage problem but also to deal with the growth of traffic within macrocells. However, the deployment of a new femtocell layer may have an undesired impact on the performance of the macrocell layer. The allocation of spectrum resources and the avoidance of electromagnetic interference are some of the more urgent challenges that operators face before femtocells become widely deployed. In this article a coverage and interference analysis based on a realistic OFDMA macro/femtocell scenario is provided, as well as some guidelines on how the spectrum allocation and interference mitigation problems can be approached in these networks. Special attention is paid to the use of self-configuration and self-optimization techniques for the avoidance of interference.