Scaleable network multicast for cooperative base stations

Cooperative joint transmission and detection algorithms have a high potential to increase the capacity of cellular radio systems. This paper investigates efficient network layer protocols to realize such cooperation over a heterogeneous, bandwidth-limited backhaul. Target systems are MIMO-OFDM cellular communication systems with flat hierarchy (no central unit), and we take 3GPP LTE as example. The proposed architecture uses IP multicast for stations receiving the same information and is scaleable by dynamically cooperating only on frequency subbands. SINR and mobility thresholds are used to first cooperate for critical cell-edge users with low mobility, where most interference reduction gain is to be expected.