Dense areas femtocell deployment: Access types and challenges

Abstract

In large open dense areas, high numbers of people use their smart phones to share pictures or data and download other information. This behavior creates traffic profiles that differ from those typically seen in the traditional network in less dense areas where less uplink traffic and less frequent packet transmission will be experienced. Thus planning for these dense network conditions must consider the uplink capacity and control plane dimensioning. Reducing the cell size has always been the best way to increase capacity. But smaller cells introduce the cost of more interference control, capacity and mobility management. This paper will compare the access types of femtocells in case of dense area networks and present the related challenges in terms of femtocell interference, offloading and mobility management. A comparison of existing schemes that consider the above mentioned challenges is presented and a road map is given to point out the main protocols and access type that should be adopted in case of dense areas planning.