Interference minimization in hybrid WiFi/cellular networks

The exploitation of already deployed wireless local area networks (WLAN)s access points (AP)s has attracted considerable attention, as an efficient and practical method to improve the performance of wireless networks. In this paper, we adopt a hybrid accessing approach, where the WLAN APs share their wireless cellular broadband connection with other users. These users will select their serving node based on a certain selection criterion. Thus a challenging research field is originated, where interfering effects and wireless resources limitations play a dominant role. Important performance metrics of the proposed hybrid scheme, including the bit error probability and the ergodic capacity, are theoretically studied and closed form expressions are derived. Numerical results and simulations show that the proposed wireless architecture may offer significant performance gains in the presence of multiple interferers, compared to a conventional cellular network.