Wireless Femto-Relays: A New Model for Small Cell Deployments

The continuous increase in mobile data traffic creates the need for radical innovations in the mobile broadband system design. Heterogeneous networks (HetNets) deployment paradigm is an emerging research trend considered as the most significant aspect for meeting the mobile data challenge, mainly by proposing spectral efficiency enhancements and cell capacity gains from an overall system perspective. Two are the main challenges that dense small cell networks are facing: a) various types of interference mainly caused by unplanned deployments, and b) limited and Quality of Service (QoS)-unreliable wired backhaul links. In this paper, the authors propose a model where femtocells' and relays' complementary characteristics are effectively exploited into femto-relays. More specifically, the authors describe four main functionalities of this model: a) interference protection, b) two-fold backhaul alternatives (i.e. wired and wireless backhaul), c) opportunistic femto-relay selection, and d) full-duplex in-band relaying. To evaluate the anticipated technical impact of the proposed model, targeted simulation results are presented for a campus topology where femto-relays are compared with classic femtocells. Finally, related open issues, such as signaling overheads management, context-aware resource management, and business logic aspects are presented, with emphasis on the femto-relay's real market penetration opportunities in the mid and long-term future.