Joint multicell subchannel assignment with interference control and resource fairness in multiband OFDMA cellular networks

Optimized distribution of downlink resources to users is a key challenge in future cellular communication systems with increasing base station density. Mobile broadband networks are expected to operate under frequency reuse factor one and are therefore interference-limited. We derive a novel framework for resource-fair sum rate maximization in OFDMA multicell deployments with single antenna links where power allocation among subchannels is predefined. The framework holds for multiband scenarios with non-contiguously aggregated carriers. Our proposed algorithm for joint subchannel scheduling is based on semidefinite reformulation and programming techniques. It has a significant contribution by taking into account active control of inter-cell interference on shared frequency resources. We achieve throughput bounds and near-optimal feasible sum rates under guarantee of interference temperature constraints by extensively exploiting all degrees of the three-dimensional binary assignment problem. We give simulation results that are compliant with wireless propagation assumptions under the Long Term Evolution (LTE) standard. Moreover, we show that the network performance can gain substantial improvements by our scheme when compared to the current generation of wireless networks where subchannel assignment has distributed implementations among locally operating cell sites.