Random CDMA in the multiple cell uplink environment: the effect of fading on various receivers

A simple multi-cell Rayleigh fading uplink communication model is suggested and analyzed for optimally coded randomly spread DS-CDMA with multiuser detection. The model adheres to Wyner´s (1994) infinite linear cell-array setting, according to which only adjacent-cell interference is present, and characterized by a single parameter 0⩽α⩽1. The discussion is confined to asymptotic analysis where both the number of users per cell and the processing gain go to infinity, while their ratio goes to some finite constant. The spectral efficiency of various multiuser detection strategies is evaluated assuming single cell-site processing, and equal transmit powers for all users in all cells. Comparative results demonstrate how performance is affected by the introduction of inter-cell interference (with and without fading), and what is the penalty associated with the randomly spread coded DS-CDMA strategy