2—Sector interference channel communication for sum rates and minimum rate maximization

This paper applies recent advances in communicating over the interference channel while treating the interference as noise. Two maximization utilities are considered: maximizing the sum rates and maximizing the minimum rate. The channel model is based on a 2—sector interference channel within a single cell. The utilities maximization is presented from the perspective of the interference channel's achievable rates region. Maximizing the minimum rate parts from the traditional problem formulation of casting it as a pure power control problem. Instead, the problem is presented as maximization over the convex hull of the rates region, therefore employing both power control and time-sharing strategies. For maximizing the minimum rate, it is shown that optimal communication over a 2—sector channel is not homogenous, and an interplay of different time-sharing types and/or power control is required to achieve optimality. Systems results are presented together with the gains achieved by using the proposed techniques over the traditional paradigms used in communicating over the 2—sector channel. Finally, insights and the contextualization of the aforementioned techniques within an information theoretic perspective are discussed.