Heterogeneous network deployments in LTE – the soft-cell approach

LTE is rapidly emerging as the world’s most dominant 4G technology, taking mobile broadband to unprecedented performance levels. To meet expectations and predictions for even higher data rates and traffic capacity – beyond what is available in current LTE networks – a densified infrastructure is needed. There are two different approaches to heterogeneous deploy¬ment – resource partitioning and soft-cell schemes – both of which provide support for excessive range expansion.

This strategy results in a heterogeneous-network deployment with two cell layers. The principle can be extended to more than two layers and the concept of multiple layers, is in itself not new; hierarchical cell structures have been considered since the mid-1990s – but, at that time, the discussion applied to mobile technologies primarily offering low-rate voice services.

This article discusses two different approaches to heterogeneous deployment – resource partitioning and soft-cell schemes – both of which provide support for excessive range expansion.a