Performance Analysis of Handover Strategies in the 3GPP Small Cell Scenario

The deployment of small cells is a possible solution to improve the performance of voice and data services at indoor hotspots. However, despite helping the distribution of transmission resources, they might work at the same macrocell frequency, possibly increasing the system interference. Furthermore, a large number of handovers among small and macrocells might be triggered due to the overlaid coverage between these two types of cell. This article analyzes the impact that the presence of blocks of these short-ranged cells will have, not only on the number of handovers, but also on the throughput of an LTE system.