Frequency Shifted Frequency Reuse for LTE Heterogeneous Networks

To further increase the experienced data rate per user, and to overcome the poor indoor penetration and the presence of dead-spots, the network architectures with relays, picocells and femtocells underlaying the macrocell network which are commonly referred as heterogeneous networks have drawn more and more researching interests. One of the main challenges of heterogeneous networks is the severe inter-cell interference or the inter-tier interference when different tier of heterogeneous networks are deployed with the same frequency. In this paper, we propose a smart frequency planning scheme called Frequency Shifted Frequency Reuse (FSFR). Within the concept of FSFR, most control channel interference can be avoided or attenuated. System-level simulation results and numerical analysis prove that FSFR is a smart and effective frequency planning scheme for LTE heterogeneous networks with low complexity and low cost.